The reason behind the so far non-reveal of Alliances next allied race...

[Nnyco]

its almost like its early alpha and they work on em one by one

[Syegfryed]

Perhaps they'll give us a series of different human models from the seven kingdoms to match the Maghar. We have Stormwind and Gilnean humans. Need to add models for Dalaran, Stromgarde Lordaeron, Alterac, kul'tiras

the problem is all of those are the same, the only ones unique are from kultirans, bulky and skinny options

they could unite all the kingdoms (except dalaran for obvious reasons) but they would not get a different model to each kingdom, it would be too much effort and would not make much sense, with orcs is just skin color, done since WoD, o its way more easy.

[Darktbs]

The truth that no one seems to be facing is, it’s alpha, and the player base is freaking out, petulant and kinda whiny. It’s early days and Blizzard just has more development done on Horde side.

Everyone needs to stop crying and relax, by the time BfA releases Alliance players will know what their equivalents are.

We already know that we are getting something.

What we are worried is, with the evidence we have, what we will get is not that good.

[Directionalk9]

We already know that we are getting something.

What we are worried is, with the evidence we have, what we will get is not that good.

To be fair this is the WoW playerbase of MMO-C, nothing will ever appease us/them anyway.

[Exxord]

Yeah, can you imagine sylvanas waking up one day and being like: "Man i haven't betrayed anyone in a long time, gotta get some of that sweet betrayal juice...lottery time !" And it ends up being poor vulperas. I can already see sylvanas bursting in seams in anticipation of that glorious betrayal. Its probably number 1 on her priority list.

I'm not saying it will happen, I'm saying it CAN happen. She's totally the type to throw the foxies away as soon as their interests will diverge from the ones of her Horde.

[Oswen]

It's probably not that easy to make an Alliance Allied race and avoid the complaint that will come right after.
The most obvious choices would be:
Wildhammer Dwarves
Broken Draenei
Vrykul (maybe)

All three of these have some glaring problems which are not easily resolved.
Wildhammers and Broken are an easy and obvious pick and would be the most thematically correct choices; the problem with these comes from being released right after Lightforged and Dark Iron and while the most longtime hardcore fans would love for them to be playable the majority of the players would scream that they are "lazy", "recycled" and so on and Blizzard probably wants to avoid that right now not to kill the expansion hype (and sales).
They are probably being saved for later.

Vrykul have a problem with Kul Tiran since one is a big human and the other is an even bigger human. Vrykul also have the issue of being way too big and Blizzard may feel that they wouldn't look right after being shrunk down; Kul Tiran are probably going to be the compromise, acting as a half-vrykul of some sort.
Ogres and Mok'nathal may end up in a very similar situation should Blizzard ever decide to add them, with Mok'nathal acting as a compromise since a shrunk down Ogre model may not feel right (sadly).

While the Horde is getting Mag'har and Vulpera (very likely) next I feel that Blizzard may be scrambling to find the right Allied Race for the Alliance which may be on par with the Zandalari (coolness level speaking) without causing even more whining.
Kul tiran are probably coming but they are not enough, That leaves us with other exotic but possible choices:
Furbolgs
Arakkoa
Jinyu
Sethrak

Furbolgs already have lots of lore behind them, they have a small but vocal fanbase and would make an obvious choice.
The problem with them is that their model would need to be redone and in the end they wouldn't really be that mindblowing of an addition.
They could also replace them with Jalgar (the prime Furbolg from Chronicles), make up some new lore and most of all recycle more "feral" animations from Worgen to make them look better.

Arakkoa have been requested for years and would make a nice candidate for a WoD based Alliance race (since, at this moment it feels like the Alliance had no business there) to oppose the Mag'har.
The problem with them is that that females look exactly the same as the males which wont work with the way WoW races are structured so they would have to make up some differences (plumage, beaks etc) which may not be worth in the end.

Jinyu could be done since they are modeled on the Night Elven skeleton and they would be a nice themetic addition being a shamanistic yet peaceful race.
The issue with them is that they are not very popular AND they also have no distinction between the male and female model, not to mention the nightmarish clipping issues with fins and the like.

That leaves us with the Sethrak.
I feel like the Sethrak, unlike Vulpera, were never intended to be more than a a npc race.
However they are being requested alot in these days on various sources and I feel like Blizzard may be seriously looking at them in order to find a way to make them work (even if they too have some glaring issues like the aforementioned races) in order to give the Alliance a very "we worked hard on these" choice.
I would keep an eye on them.

[Jack Black]

The big Kul'tirans seem to be likely. There were alot of requests for Vrykul aswell. I am expecting one of those two, with Kul'tiran being the more likely one. So, in a way, they are already in aswell.

But there is problem. Kul Tirasian give vibes of European Conquistadors when Vrykul is Nordic Vikings. You see its High Elves into Void Elves all over again. Surrogate I would say. Its like if instead of Mag'har Horde would get Pale Orcs.

[Futhark]

But it's just speculation.

Can you say, hand on heart, that is impossible for the Kul Tiran Human to be used as the base for a future playable Ogre? I think it can.

I think so as well:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-Ogres-in-mind

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Don't worry everyone, the Drust only have [PH] models so far. The Drust are coming.

[In Ogres We Trust]

Realisticly speaking, i can only see 3 options
-Broken
-Kul'tiran Humans
-Jinyu

With the last one being a stretch.Either way, Blizzard isn't really caring for the Alliance at the moment.We still in Alpha and the Horde already has their 4th Allied race and there is an npc race full with customization, while we barely know the classes for Dark Irons.

It'll be Tirasian humans; if anything, the Jinyu will be paired with the Hozen, and the Broken will be paired with a race from Outland and/or Draenor.

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Blizzard corned themselves when they gave Nightborne for the Horde and didn't give High Elves for Alliance. Actually, I think Alliance should get both, but now, obviously, it is too late. I think people play Alliance to look pretty, and if that's true, there are really very few options that would please most Alliance players.

Horde should have stick with more Orcs, Undead, Trolls, Taurens and so on. It looks so weird going to Orgrimmar and seeing all those elves, they don't belong.

The Nightborne and the Blood Elves should have been neutral from the start.

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It's not a "waiting game". They've outright admitted in the past that they work on Horde content first, and Alliance second. So if there's a shortage of time, the Alliance suffers for it. It'll probably just be boring old Kul'Tirans with the bare minimum effort put into it.

And you're lying to flame the thread.

[DesMephisto]

Now we all know that Horde are getting AU Orc clans for their next allied race, they're basically finished already (mainly because a lot of the assets were already there to be used). So I've been wondering, is the reason we haven't seen the Alliance counterpart announcement is because Blizzard are playing a sort of waiting game?

The Alliance doesn't have a truly obvious choice like the AU Orc clans or the Vulpera. The obvious option it does have has been received either fairly poorly or with a decidedly 'meh' attitude (the endless fat jokes about the Kul'tirans, effectively turning them into a joke before they're even confirmed, not to mention the 'yay more humans....sigh' effect) so...are they simply holding back and weighing up their options?

I mean it would be a smart thing to do. See which possible options really resonate with people. They won't do High Elves because the sole reason they introduced Void Elves was to get around that (even though the fan made concept art shown on here for the making them like the Warcraft 2 High Elves with facial tribal tattoos and the like was awesome) plus I imagine they've seen the numerous 'World of Elfcraft' jabs.

So the High Elves are basically ruled out, the Kul'tirans aren't that well received so I imagine they're working on something that may require a bit more work. Now as much as a I hope Sethrak are the obvious pick they don't make sense to pair off with the AU Orcs. I picture them as probably an 8.2 sort of time period release. Though the Vulpera are fast becoming basically show time ready and it is clear there is work on them in the back end because armour sets are slowly being fine tuned on them (when they were first released a lot of armour sets looked janky on them but now those same armour sets seem to be fine).

So as much as it pains me, lets rule out the Sethrak as the first Allied race the Alliance gets after release.

The Dark Iron are being introduced which means that while the Wildhammer clan is the only option left for Alliance in the 'add some new cosmetics to an existing race', ala the Highmountain Tauren or the Lightforged Draenei, that I doubt they'd be thrown in as the very first allied race. Plus could you imagine the uproar comparing the massive customisation options of the AU Orcs to what is essentially just a regular Dwarf with some tribal paint and a few new hair cuts.

Where exactly does that leave us? All the more obvious picks have been ruled out and I think that is why we've not seen the next Allied Race for Alliance being announced. Blizzard have backed themselves into a corner. It has got to be something on par with the AU orcs but none of the picks are there. Hence the 'wait and see' approach.

...yay...more humans?

There are one and a half humans.

Meanwhile there are 4 god damn elves.

[CreatureLives]

Blizzard never really officially announced the Draenor Orcs. Ion just kinda accidentally revealed it during a live stream.

That said, It's kinda obvious that it's Draenor Orcs and Kul Tiran Humans mainly because the Kul Tirans have so much customization but also because their counterpart is the Zandalari Trolls. It wouldn't seem right if Blizz decided that The Horde gets the main race the Horde works with in the expansion but the Alliance doesn't get the main race they work with in the expansion.

Allied races will likely be released in groups of 4. First batch was Highmountain Tauren, Nightborne, Lightforged Draenei and Void Elves. Second batch will be Draenor Orcs, Dark Iron Dwarves, Zandalari Trolls and Kul Tiran Humans. The Draenor Orcs is also the counterpart to the Dark Iron Dwarves.

[In Ogres We Trust]

Kultirans look awesome and i dont know why you mean by ''Kultirans aren't that well received''? I saw a lot more people at least on the internet that want them than people that doesnt like them. I myself cant wait to create Big kultiran male outlaw rogue and paladin also that's the reason we are going there to recruit them as alliance the same way horde is going to zandalari to recruit them.

The problem with Tirasian models is that they should have always been a normal, customization option for the humans (along with the bulk of the Allied Races).

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Except that Taoshi is a major player in the Rogue order hall, a sitting member of the ruling council of a shadow organization, and that neutrality does nothing to prevent a race's use in future lore (otherwise we wouldn't have had Argent Crusade storylines in Cataclysm and Legion).

The main reason they were dissatisfied with how pandaren turned out as a neutral race (silhouette recognition) is literally a non-issue now with the proliferation of allied races using cross-faction base models (namely, the void elves, Nightborne, and Zandalari) and how many of them there are. They toned down pandaren lore presence after MoP for the same reason we don't hear much out of the Drakkari trolls, broken Draenei from Outland, or the Qiraji: Blizzard tends to keep things contained per-expansion to prevent player burnout/visual fatigue from too much of the same (a lesson they re-learned with orcs in WoD and fel art assets in Legion). Even then, they play a key role in both the shaman and monk class storylines--the Elemental weapon quest has you participating in a contest at Xuen's temple, the monk class retains a strong pandaren theme and you use part of the starting zone for your order hall, and as I mentioned above, one of the major Shado-Pan NPCs (and Taran Zhu's de facto right-hand gal) is a big player in the rogue class storyline.

'Muh pandarens' is a bad argument if you want to argue against neutral races going forward, because nearly everything Blizzard listed as reasons they're reluctant to do so going forward have been rendered moot with the allied races.

They were never dissatisfied with the Pandaren (you're source for this nonsensical quote comes from Ghostcrawler - who's no longer at Blizzard, and that was merely his own opinion).

[Paraka]

Not a chance. They hate that they made pandaren neutral. It kills any ability to ever use that race for lore ever again, hence why pandas now exist as monk trainers and joke chefs only

Is there a citation to this, cause I would actually like to see it.

And I don't think them not using Pandaren has a correlation to them not using them in lore more often. It's mostly because all the good characters aren't plenty that can equally play a role on both sides.

[Obelisk Kai]

They were never dissatisfied with the Pandaren (you're source for this nonsensical quote comes from Ghostcrawler - who's no longer at Blizzard, and that was merely his own opinion).

They were pleased by the Pandaren, I am sure of that.

What they weren't pleased by was the concept of a neutral race, which is what Ghostcrawler was getting at rather than criticizing the Pandaren.

Now, you can say he was just one man but when he gave the comment he was a part of Blizzard.

More importantly, there has not been a neutral race added since.

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Is there a citation to this, cause I would actually like to see it.

And I don't think them not using Pandaren has a correlation to them not using them in lore more often. It's mostly because all the good characters aren't plenty that can equally play a role on both sides.

Here is the link to the tweet which occurred while he was still at Blizzard

https://twitter.com/OccupyGStreet/st...65802590384129

AND

Here is the link to the MMO champion thread discussing said tweet

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-neutral-races

In hindsight, neutrality has had a negative impact on the Pandaren. To be neutral, they had to be divorced from being fully Alliance or Horde. And to give them some sort of role, they were more fully bound up with the story of their own land than any race before them or since. It really bound them to the Mists of Pandaria expansion.

The Pandaren themselves though are a great race that enriches world of warcraft and I am glad they are thing.

[Evangeliste]

Their use in the lore should never have happened to begin with. This is what they get for turning Easter eggs into an expansion.

They were actually lore long before an April Fool's day joke. To the point, they were going to be an Alliance race in TBC but got pulled - where Eredar, Draenei and such was created to further the story of it all. The RTS fleshed out the most long-standing lore including at least some Pandaren like Chen Stormstout which exists before Pandaria, so making an expansion from it is not a lot different to really Northrend, Broken Isles, Kezan, Zandalar and Kul'Tiras as they all went through roughly the same progression.

The only difference is that the Pandaren lore wasn't well known because not everyone who plays the MMO played the RTS. And wasn't as much of part of the campaigns as other races. It was also hindered with people seeing Kung Fu Panda claiming Blizzard stole when they are very ignorant to Pandaren being around 5-6 years earlier than the original film franchise easily.

The funny fact is, there was a quest in Ratchet given by a Brewmaster Orc named "Chen's Lost Keg", so it was thought of long before making a faction which predates Kung Fu Panda by a year along too haha. Going neutral was what was a problem though and something they learned.

[Jack Black]

Idea of fat and thin humans is not new in Warcraft. During alpha of Vanilla there were fat/thin models that were cancelled. Some of it made it into WotLK.

I don't think Kul Tirasian will end up playable race. They lack of customization options (IIRC hair colour have only 4 options), thin model don't have female version and female fat model is just enlarged default human model. I believe Blizzard add them to create diversity for human NPC since Kul Tiras is major focus in BFA for Alliance.

Don't worry everyone, the Drust only have [PH] models so far. The Drust are coming.

What is [PH] stands for?

[EbaumsTipster]

I implore people to think about what could possibly be the next allied race on alliance if it's not Kul Tirans. Do you really think it's High Elves?

[Cedon]

Blizzard corned themselves when they gave Nightborne for the Horde and didn't give High Elves for Alliance.

Kind of hard to give the Alliance High Elves when they've been a playable race for the Horde since January of 2007.

I implore people to think about what could possibly be the next allied race on alliance if it's not Kul Tirans. Do you really think it's High Elves?

No, for the reason I stated above.

[Evangeliste]

Idea of fat and thin humans is not new in Warcraft. During alpha of Vanilla there were fat/thin models that were cancelled. Some of it made it into WotLK.

I don't think Kul Tirasian will end up playable race. They lack of customization options (IIRC hair colour have only 4 options), thin model don't have female version and female fat model is just enlarged default human model. I believe Blizzard add them to create diversity for human NPC since Kul Tiras is major focus in BFA for Alliance.

Snipped image



What is [PH] stands for?

You do know that current Allied Races have limited options right? The Lightforged for example has 5 hair colours and like 5 hairstyles? And the others are very similar as well. A limited amount would be 1-2 hairstyles or basically the same model recycled several times with different items on them.

Having those additional things can go both ways admittedly I will agree but it's far more progressed than numerous NPC races like Gorloc, Murloc, Etheraels, Jinyu, Hozen, Dragonkin (and it's literally recolours here, sod all input on variety), Furbolgs, Ettin, Mogu, Tuskarr, Saurok, Quillboar, Harpies, Arrokoa (literally again recolours and different items)... So on and so on. And some of those aforementioned NPC races could easily join Alliance or Horde for whatever imaginable idea.

[EbaumsTipster]

Kul Tirans don't have customization not because they aren't playable, but because 3/4s of the art team is working on Horde content. Alliance doesn't even have updated royal guards yet and Boralus is mostly empty. I have no idea why this point keeps getting ignored.