Horde get two brand NEW Races

[Obelisk Kai]

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

You can use the orb of the sin'dorei if you wish.

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

()

Either way you'll end up as a pincushion.

[Caaethil]

I mean, OP isn't wrong. I wouldn't complain about it myself, but Nightborne and Zandalari are much more unique than anything the Alliance is getting. You can tell where the effort went.

Might have been more even if we'd gotten Broken rather than Lightforged. Lightforged are cool and I'm going to race change my paladin, but Broken would have been cooler and more unique imo.

I actually thought we'd be seeing Broken as a subrace back when the first four were datamined, seeing how the new Broken model on Argus seems to use the draenei skeleton. And sure, they've got no female model, but neither did Zandalari, if I remember correctly?

Chances seem slimmer now we have Lightforged (same with Wildhammer dwarves), but we'll see.

[Eazy]

Edited for accuracy.

At first I thought that's a troll post, but I must say that I completely agree. Well done.

Writing it once again so people would see it:

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.

[Rekz]

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.

^^ This guy gets it.

I'm not going to even comment on the dark iron dwarves as they are a complete joke.

It's almost as if Blizzard is pulling an EA by marketing re-packaged classes that are currently in game as a huge feature in the upcoming expansion.

If we cut through all the BS, we'll see that the only new PLAYABLE races being introduced are the Zandalari Trolls and the Nightborne for the horde only.

We are fully aware of Blizzard completely biased favoritism for the Horde (which has impacted subs) but we are also aware that their greed has no partisanship. They will just as quickly take money from the Alliance as they will from the Horde.

If we're speaking strictly in terms of people who favor faction pride, then an argument can be made that an xpac that gives the Horde 2 new playable races while the Alliance are getting none could potentially impact not only pre-orders but also total sales.

[Doffen]

Either way you'll end up as a pincushion.

ROFL!

Silvermoon, home sweet home.

[Bearded Sith]

I think I understand what the OP is trying to get at, but he/she is still incorrect. I think the OP is referring to new models that their faction don't currently have. However, they actually only get one. Same with Alliance. Void Elves and Nightborne. Alliance get a "Blood Elf" model and Horde gets a "Night Elf" model.

But...this is only what's been released so far...

[Hipnos14]

The problem with the allied races is that two of the Alliance ones are not "races", they don't have a different culture, so they feel like shit to introduce and they could be just added customization options to already existing races.

Lightforged Draenei - They are the same Draenei you have now, exactly the same Draenei, from the same planet, everything the same, even their architecture is the same because it comes from the same designs (the Naaru ships, crystals everywhere), they don't have a different culture at all, not even a unique look, they are just light infused Draenei, you could pull whatever you want out of your ass by this logic, nature Draenei, lightning Draenei, fire Draenei, etc.
The only way to fix this is to add something different, like the Broken, and add the new customization options of the Lightforged to the old Draenei.

Void Elves - They are Blood Elves, with the same culture, even the same mount but void infused, the same problem that the Lightforged have, altho this one I think is easy to fix, just add High Elf skins with blue tattoos like the ones Alleria has and, in terms of lore, make a change at the end of the intro questline to show that Alleria brings High Elf rangers to train them in the void creating a new faction of Allerian Elves or something like that, a mixture of Void Elves and High Elves, then you can have a different culture, look and traditions and they could feel as a new race.

Dark Iron Dwarves - They are dwarves but with a specific culture and traditions, they are different, not just fire infused dwarves, their architecture is different, their armor is unique, they are a good "Allied Race"

Hightmountain Tauren - They are Tauren but with a different culture, traditions and looks, they are a good "Allied Race"

Nightborne - They are transformed Night Elves with a unique culture, traditions and looks, literally a new race.

Zandalari Trolls - They are trolls with a unique physique, culture, tradition and looks, they are the oldest type of troll in Azeroth, completely a new race.

I think the key point here is "culture" Lightforged Draenei and Void Elves don't have different cultures, they are just a faction inside an already existing faction.
Imagine that instead of Highmountain the horde gets Upright Orcs as a new race, this is the same ridiculous thing, not a new culture or even model, just a magic-infused variation of an already existing race.

I get that Blizzard doesn't have infinite time to do everything they want, but come on...how the hell the idea of Lightforged Draenei or Void Elves was greenlited?

[Ticj]

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.

I do understand, I'm just saying based on how they look. I know the Nightborne are reskins of Night Elf, but they did a very good job at making it so it doesn't seem like it. Same with Zandalari. While on the alliance it is blatantly obvious. Yes, they're all reskins, but some look more like reskins than others, and that's what is important.

[Magnagarde]

It was already stated in another thread that the Horde got off better in the race pool. For some reason Blizzard seems to believe that void elves are such an amazing addition that it warrants vague picks in other places.

[MechaCThun]

Nightborne and Void Elves are still elves.

Highmountain are still tauren; Dark Iron are still dwarves.

Lightforged are still draenei; Zandalari are still trolls.

The only argument I see is Nightborne are significantly different enough to warrant them a whole separate race. In a way, they are. Their model is more unique that night elves and blood elves and lore-wise they are an evolved race of night elves.

I'd wager Blizzard making a model overhaul to the Void Elves. I've seen this similar discussion on the official forums and on WoWhead.com.

[Rabka Uhalla]

We are fully aware of Blizzard completely biased favoritism for the Horde

Citation needed jackass. Oh wait, you won't find any because there hasn't been any Horde favoritism. Pretty much every expansion except for Cata has been Alliance favoritism or neutral. So.... yeah.

[NotFunny008]

You have a very strange definition of "fact"...fact is that BFA launches with 3 "new races" per faction. "these arent the only races that will be coming" is not. It's the literal opposite of a fact.

On topic:
Only seeing the models and ignoring everything else about the races, the Horde wins because there is no playable race that Zandalari are a reskin of, while the other 5 options are. This is also a fact. Horde also gets new Orcs, which are more popular than at least 4 of the new races. So Horde gets 2 new models while Alliance gets 0.

But many players don't look at the models alone. They also look at the amount of lore, NPCs with a backstory we already know, size and quality of the homezone and such.

If you take all these points into consideration, Highmountain + Nightborne top everything, because they were actually new factions of Legion. LF Draenei were not. They were just golden regular Draenei with absolutely NOTHING on top of that. And, spoiler alert, in BFA they will still be golden regular Draenei with absolutely nothing on top of that. No lore, no home, no nothing. The 6 NPCs we learn about could have just as well been regular Draenei and nobody would have noticed. You could argue that's the same with Highmountain - which is true - but Highmountain have a HOME.

Voild Elves - we simply don't know if they will get fleshed out to some degree. The only thing that we could judge them on now is Alleria's Void-Story. Which, in my opinion, was not good. I found it forced, unbelievable and very unnecessary. The whole Mac'aree sideplot felt not like it was a part of our effort against the Legion but some bullshit sideproject with no impact on the war. Argus simply did not do a good job of telling its story. Suramar, on the other hand, did a FANTASTIC job of telling its story. I think this is a main reason for the dissatisfaction of Alliance players: Horde gets the Suramar story - which was awesome - while Alliance gets Argus - which was not awesome. The only thing us Alliance players can take some rejoice in is that Nightborne joining the Banshee-Queen-Orc-Faction makes absolutely no sense at all. As does them joining the war against the Night Elves. So all the great characters we came to like during legion will go to shit, because there simply is no convicing story to tell for them in this faction war. While golden Draenei joining the Alliance is not a big deal. It's simply negligible.

As for Dark Iron: They are part of the Aliance since Cataclysm. Dwarves got Mages and Warlocks EXPLICITLY with the reasoning that Dark Iron have rejoined Ironforge. Selling them as a "new race" now seems cheap. They should have just been a cosmetic option for existing Dwarves. When it comes to home....i guess nobody believes they will actually update ANYTHING in Shadowforge. So while the Dark Iron may have a giant Home City in the lore...at the moment it looks like they will get absolutely nothing playable from that at all, which is not true for Nightborne+Highmountain.

----

I think the facts are very clear: All the new shiny goes to the Horde. I predict BFA will bring a GIANT swap of players changing from Alliance > Horde, because upright Orcs are cool, Suramar is beautiful and Zandalar is epic. Alliance has exactly NOTHING to compare with that. Void Elves may be "cool" - but their Class Selection is lacklustre. I have no doubt a LOT of players will try them out....but will not stick with them after 120, because they really only befit Shadow Priests and MAYBE Sub Rogues. That's it. I guess we will see some mages and hunters because Blood Elf and Alleria....which are also pure DPS. If Velf really becomes a dominant race in the Alliance, it will mean shit for our dungeon Qs. We don't know yet how much non-role content will actually replace role-content in BFA. We know it did not work in MOP - that's the only reference we have.

So let's stay tuned. I predict 70:30 Horde:Alliance 3-4 months after BFA launch, which will cause many systems in the game to fail (PvP, Q-times for Alliance, Availabilty of Raids) and Blizzard to go Ape shit and panically do something very stupid.

You forget the Horde has to endure hunched over uncool male orcs since the beginning. How is that fair? You are just taking upright human as granted as some sort of given "right" of yours. Alliance getting good stuff is a "right" but as soon as horde getting anything seemingly good, you cry unfair. It is kind of hypocritical!

[ello]

there is no way giving orcs the upright option is horde bias. There is NO lore reason for Orcs to be hunched over, it should've been like this from day 1.

[Pull My Finger]

I think I understand what the OP is trying to get at, but he/she is still incorrect. I think the OP is referring to new models that their faction don't currently have. However, they actually only get one. Same with Alliance. Void Elves and Nightborne. Alliance get a "Blood Elf" model and Horde gets a "Night Elf" model.

Huh?

Nightborne are unique models. It's not a recolored NE model. The Zandalari trolls are also not recolors of the standard Trolls, but have their own genuinely unique model.
OP is 100% correct, the Horde came off better here. They get 2 unique models while Alliance get none. Absolutely nothing to discuss here.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

No, but when the only reason Horde even got Nightborne is to balance out Alliance getting the "High Elves" that were continually requested for fairness, it's kinda shitty that the Alliance then get the shorter end of the stick.

Honestly, if we were going by how things should have actually been done rather than "fair": They should have given the Horde Zandalari (what they wanted) and Ogres (what they want most of all) and then just made HM/Taunka, Upright Orcs and Mag'har new customization options for those existing races. And then given Alliance their High Elves (what they wanted), Broken, and LF/Nightborne/Dark Iron customization options for those existing races.

So what you are saying is that neither side got what they wanted.

Seems pretty fair to me.

Also, If Horde had gotten Ogres than people would be whining that the horde got an actual new race (not a variant of an existing race) while the alliance just gets reskins.

[Deleted]

Alliance could've gotten (scaled down) Vrykul instead of Dark Iron Dwarves, since Vrykul are the one potential Alliance race from Legion that's gotten more development than even the Lightforged and Void Elves (... which is not a difficult achievement anyway).

That would've made a ton more sense than reskinned dwarves with 0 story development since Cataclysm.

[Lochton]

When will Alliance get 2 brand new races?



Edit: Changed Classes to Races

Eeeehhh? We can do this really annoyingly.

Alliance:
Dark Iron Dwarves - Not new
Void Elves - New
Lightforged - Not new

Horde:
Zandalari - Not new
Nightborne - Not new
Highmountain Tauren - Not new

This is if we do it really annoying, above example. Now, if we look from an overview of factions in general.

Alliance:
Dark Iron Dwarves - Updated Faction, they were part already.
Void Elves - New
Lightforged - New

Horde:
Zandalari - New
Nightborne - New
Highmountain Tauren - New

And if we go brand new races...

Alliance:
Dark Iron Dwarves - Not new
Void Elves - New
Lightforged - Not new

Horde:
Zandalari - Technically not new
Nightborne - Not new
Highmountain Tauren - Technically not new but distant cousins.

And if we go creation selection...

Alliance:
Dark Iron Dwarves - New
Void Elves - New
Lightforged - New

Horde:
Zandalari - New
Nightborne - New
Highmountain Tauren - New

And last but not least, if we go by race connections...

Alliance:
Dark Iron Dwarves - Not new
Void Elves - New
Lightforged - Not new

Horde:
Zandalari - Not new
Nightborne - New
Highmountain Tauren - Not new

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Alliance could've gotten (scaled down) Vrykul

Alliance already has scaled down Vrykul. They're called humans.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Here's another way to look at it.

Horde has been asking for Ogres for at least as long as Alliance has asked for High Elves.

BfA gives Alliance a high Elf option...


Where's the hordes Ogre option?

Alliance favouritism confirmed

[Deleted]

Here's another way to look at it.

Horde has been asking for Ogres for at least as long as Alliance has asked for High Elves.

BfA gives Alliance a high Elf option...


Where's the hordes Ogre option?

Alliance favouritism confirmed

Oooooh boy, you shut 'em down!