Allied races being unlocked mid-expansion

[Soeroah]

I think it's a great idea. So many times we've recruited other races to our factions only to have them forgotten. So many cohesive, reasonable opportunities for new racial options squandered, and if they are added now we have to go back and re-recruit them, which feels dumb.

Getting new races partway into expansions seems a lot more logical than waiting for the next expansion.

[tangers58]

You can't honestly expect Zandalari trolls to be an allied race before we even go to Zandalar and help them with their problems.

I think he means more the ones that are likely to be added in content patches, they have already said brown orcs are being worked on

[PogChamp]

people will disagree with this right up until the new racials aren't balanced and it's required for mythic raiders to buy a race change mid-expac to keep their spot in the raid. hopefully they do them right and avoid all that by making them all balanced choices but if history is an indication there will be a clear "best" for most specs, i guess if you're a high end raider just pray that you're already the "best" version of yourself.

[oldgeezer]

Since allied races are essentially a cosmetic option (alright, being able to summon an anvil as Lightforged is potentially game-breaking, I grant you) I'll bet you anything you like that as-yet unannounced races appear in the Blizzard store at some stage. Bookmark this and see if I'm wrong.

[Deleted]

Since allied races are essentially a cosmetic option

Um, lol? Do you realize the impact racial abilities have at high end play?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

For the Zandalari it makes sense, Lightforged, Void Elves, Nightborne and Highmountain to an extent already would go the direction they go due to certain factors already happening. I mean every Highmountain tauren would want to go with their own people.

[Deleted]

people will disagree with this right up until the new racials aren't balanced and it's required for mythic raiders to buy a race change mid-expac to keep their spot in the raid. hopefully they do them right and avoid all that by making them all balanced choices but if history is an indication there will be a clear "best" for most specs, i guess if you're a high end raider just pray that you're already the "best" version of yourself.

Yeah, this is what I'm trying to get at. It doesn't matter to most players, just like titanforging or whatever but to people who want to remain competitive in raids these sort of things do make a difference and it just sucks that we can't prepare ourselves now or at least in the pre-patch.

[oldgeezer]

Um, lol? Do you realize the impact racial abilities have at high end play?

Yeah so? There's nothing stopping Blizz introducing races with pretty skins but (utterly trivial) abilities that have no meaningful effect on 'high end play'.

[Byleth]

Oh great, a third whine thread on this topic... Yay!

[Rorixis]

im just saving the boost from the preorder till i get my hands on a zandalari then i can play it with all the zandalari gear ill get from quests

[CreatureLives]

It would be really fucking weird if you could play a Zandalari Troll before the expansion without knowing anything about their story.

Seems like you'll have to wait till the expansion after BFA to play as one of those Allied Races if you don't want to race change or level another toon mid expansion.

Kinda weird to expect content from BFA before BFA is even launched. Anything we get now is bonus early access stuff but not a requirement on Blizzard's end. At least 3 of the 4 Allied Races we did get probably aren't even that relevant to the story in BFA so its a lot easier to just give them away now. Something tells me that the Dark Iron Dwarves and especially the Zandalari Trolls have something big planned in BFA so that's why we are getting them later. As for the Draenor Orcs and potentially the Kul Tirans, the cover art of BFA is literally Orcs vs Humans so it only makes sense to wait till BFA to experience that. I don't really see Nightborne, Lightforged Draenei and Highmountain Tauren ever doing anything meaningful again because those stories have been told. I still think the Void Elves have something big planned but there is at least enough story to get them started off. We don't have access to that story right now for the Zandalari and Dark Iron because they haven't done anything in WoW in years. So we gotta wait.

[Mic_128]

Would be cool if you could "upgrade" your race to a corresponding allied race for free though.

So say, the character is Draenei, it can opt to transform to Lightforged. Dwarf to Dark Iron, etc. All through an in-game quest line of course.

I think they addressed this before with 'upgrading' a character to a hero class, being that if someone changes their mind, that's potentially years of attachment ruined. Imagine if you went and upgraded your draenei to Lightforged, found you didn't like any of the faces/their appearance didn't work well with your desired mog/don't like the racials. You either have to pay for a race change to go back or start leveling again from scratch. The amount of complaints, demands for free switch-backs, it just wouldn't be worth it.

[Deleted]

It irks me aswell. If you want to change race during the xpac you will be hopelessly behind or shell out 50€ for the race change. It's pretty bad.

[Khrux]

Um, lol? Do you realize the impact racial abilities have at high end play?

Yeah, next to none....

We're talking less than or equal to 1% performance differences in most cases except extreme outliers like Orcs for *some* pet classes or Belfs for resource gen(DKs mostly). Not even Method forces race changes....


I'm more concerned by the fact Zandalari apparently won't be available at BfA launch, as in won't be unlockable in 8.0 because we've been told they'll be in a post launch patch (8.1 or 8.1.5 etc.) and that pisses me off.

If i could rush the content, which I will anyway as I'm a raider and have shit to do, focus on getting rep/achievements or whatever done early to access Zandalari then thats great. If I'm just sitting on my hands until 8.1 or afterwards to get playable Zandas I'll be mad as hell.

Hopefully we'll know the requirements in advance, so we can least get them out of the way and just wait for the date. Like we did with this first batch.

[Deleted]

Would be cool if you could "upgrade" your race to a corresponding allied race for free though.

So say, the character is Draenei, it can opt to transform to Lightforged. Dwarf to Dark Iron, etc. All through an in-game quest line of course.

Would also be cool if I can upgrade my Iphone 1 to an Iphone 2 for free as well. Seeing its an upgrade from 1 to the other.
Or get an upgrade from a normal Mcdonalds burger to a Big Mac. They are both burgers after all.

Why in gods name would a company cut into their profits to give you shit for free?

[Deleted]

I'm really not all that keen on this idea and I hope I'm not the only one. I tend to stick to just 1 character throughout an expansion and so it kind of sucks that the allied races I want to play (zandalari trolls and draenor orcs) won't be playable until part way through the expansion at which point I'll have to roll a whole new character (which is hard to do when you're a mythic raider) or pay for a race change - even though I've paid for the game and subscription already. Anybody else see a flaw with this?

Create a new char when the race is available, join alt runs afterwards until it got decently enough gear.

It makes zero sense for them to be available right away, sorry bud. Otherwise make a new char at the end of BFA

- - - Updated - - -

Would be cool if you could "upgrade" your race to a corresponding allied race for free though.

So say, the character is Draenei, it can opt to transform to Lightforged. Dwarf to Dark Iron, etc. All through an in-game quest line of course.

This makes sense for Lightforged Draenei because you kind of ascend, but the other races? Lyl.

[Deleted]

8.0 would be fine; some quest-achievements, a finished storyline and maybe a reputation faction.

But a patch after 8.0? No, please, no. That's unacceptable, they should be available within the first two months of BfA.

[Deleted]

Yeah, next to none....

We're talking less than or equal to 1% performance differences in most cases except extreme outliers like Orcs for *some* pet classes or Belfs for resource gen(DKs mostly). Not even Method forces race changes....

Explain why everybody bar the druids at the M+ invitational was a blood elf then? Lol

[Mistaziggla]

Yeah, next to none....

We're talking less than or equal to 1% performance differences in most cases except extreme outliers like Orcs for *some* pet classes or Belfs for resource gen(DKs mostly). Not even Method forces race changes....


I'm more concerned by the fact Zandalari apparently won't be available at BfA launch, as in won't be unlockable in 8.0 because we've been told they'll be in a post launch patch (8.1 or 8.1.5 etc.) and that pisses me off.

If i could rush the content, which I will anyway as I'm a raider and have shit to do, focus on getting rep/achievements or whatever done early to access Zandalari then thats great. If I'm just sitting on my hands until 8.1 or afterwards to get playable Zandas I'll be mad as hell.

Hopefully we'll know the requirements in advance, so we can least get them out of the way and just wait for the date. Like we did with this first batch.

Did you not pay attention to mythic Kil'jaeden? I know many top guilds race changed to goblin because their rocket jump was so OP for that fight, I' pretty sure one alliance guild even switched to horde for it.

[Mutineer]

I get the impression they'll release allied races in the odd patches in batches of four.

For example, 8.1 might introduce Zandalari and Draenor Orcs for the Horde, Dark Irons and Kul Tirans for the Alliance. The requirements to unlock them will be known before then, but the actual quest lines to allow for their creation might be gated behind the patch cycle. Since even patches tend to be meatier, they'll use allied races to sort of balance things out a bit and give people things to do, alts to level, and so on between the bigger updates.

I'm not sure how I feel about it, but it'd be pretty cool to end up with 12 allied races total by the time BFA is over. Hopefully, they'll manage to add something for everyone with all that, too.