"The team loves the Allied Race system and thinks it is a strong system."

[Faroth]

I like the system for unlocking them fine, but I think they should start at different points.

Makes no sense to unlock a new race, then that race has to play through past events they were never a part of to level up. Ideally they'd have a DK style little intro scenario (lot of work if there's a lot of races in an expansion, I realize) and then basically be doing the content of the expansion they're introduced in.

[zlygork]

Eh, I do enjoy getting allied races over no races at all, since I'm into RP and a superficial enough person that race announcements always hype me the most for an upcoming expansion pack.

That said, I prefer Kul tiran style that have their own touches over Mag'har style that barely amount to a resking plus a few hair styles - I think allied races should be able to stand out on their own without their heritage armor.

[Fumu]

I’d rather wait an extra 6 months and they get it right than dealing with current female worgen for over 8 years and before that, female trolls who couldn’t (visibly) blink from 2004 to WoD.

I don’t know what possessed some of the best talent in the industry to suddenly shit themselves and rush out changed models at the last minute, but if waiting longer for new races delivered “Soon” means we won’t get garbage like that anymore, I’ll gladly wait.

[hyphnos]

LOL strong in plying dollars from the hands of players for boosts and race changes and in a few rare cases hours and hours of pointless playtime.

They won't think it is so "strong" when they burn people out with an endless stream of races. I suspect they have already peaked in return and they just don't know it since they are holding back the next set until even more people have quit.

[Vynestra]

2 sets of allied races, you can still see 2 free spots on alliance and on the horde side, to keep it aesthetically with original races window.

And for 90% im sure that there won't be preorder allied races bonus or new AR in the next expansion.

Allied Races have brought them in more money than probably any wow feature introduced in an xpac ever has.

yet you are 90% sure it's going away next xpac?

Do you have an insider source? Your uncle at blizz? Or just a "hunch"


I'm not positive we'll get 8-12 an xpac like this one, but I am pretty sure they'd continue adding "when it feels right" in the future, as they'd say, at the VERY least.

I doubt they'd just shut it off completely and say no never again, we hate making money.

- - - Updated - - -

Of course they love it.

If they are on a profit sharing scheme, when the Zandalari and Kul Tiran races finally land, they will reapa huge financial windfall from all the fucking race changes that get purchased because starting a new main over with the spazz-tard RNG and grinding system we have now is nigh on impossible.


Want to play a new race on your main? Better race change!

Wouldn't be shocked if they put the price up shortly before either

Tbh I think void elves were the big $$ makers for the alliance, zandalari for the horde potentially.

Void elves continue to be the highest population of allied race.

Using the wow census statistics, void elves make up 9% of alliance races, the highest on horde is 5% for nightborne and then 5% for mag'har.


For the first time void elves are about to pass draeneii, which would make them the third most popular alliance race, behind humans at 27% and night elves at 27%, with humans slightly in the lead.

[Jamie081]

I hope they don't take them beyond BFA.

The novelty wore off when Mag'har and Dark Iron Dwarves came out and were just tacked on. They had absolutely no lore build-up like the Highmountain Tauren and ESPECIALLY the Nightborne did.

Nightborne had so much potential but they are underwhelming when you compare them to the NPCs (feline eyes, more visible rune tattoos, better armour).

Void Elves and Lightforged Draenei had a patch to develop their lore so even they were lacking.

There's nothing exciting about leveling an allied race through the same old content to unlock their heritage set then never touching them again.

[Aeula]

It's a shame that they had to butcher the system by defiling faction lines with Void Elves and Nightborne. I'd be a lot happier if they just canned the system and put the resources towards giving existing races more hair/skin/eye etc... customisation.

[Synros]

As long as I get my playable Vulpera, then we're all good.

[Paraka]

I hope they don't take them beyond BFA.

The novelty wore off when Mag'har and Dark Iron Dwarves came out and were just tacked on. They had absolutely no lore build-up like the Highmountain Tauren and ESPECIALLY the Nightborne did.

Nightborne had so much potential but they are underwhelming when you compare them to the NPCs (feline eyes, more visible rune tattoos, better armour).

Void Elves and Lightforged Draenei had a patch to develop their lore so even they were lacking.

There's nothing exciting about leveling an allied race through the same old content to unlock their heritage set then never touching them again.

I mean, Draenei, when first introduced had to do a lot of retconning that the whale faced monsters in Outlamd were not them either. Ultimately they too didn't have much lore until afterwards. Only "real" races left that have lore are Ogres and some small extent, Ethereals. AMD even the latter had no lore until introduced in TBC.

[Jamie081]

I mean, Draenei, when first introduced had to do a lot of retconning that the whale faced monsters in Outlamd were not them either. Ultimately they too didn't have much lore until afterwards. Only "real" races left that have lore are Ogres and some small extent, Ethereals. AMD even the latter had no lore until introduced in TBC.

They did have 2 starter zones, Outland and eventually AU Draenor to explain their story though.

Even Argus is Draenei lore. All that Void Elves and LF Draenei had was Argus, and that was mainly Draenei lore, not backstory for the allied races.

LF Draenei are different because they're still Draenei but they still don't seem different enough to warrant being an allied race. They should've just given all the customization features to the original Draenei.

I don't mind them pulling races out of their arse as long as they give them time to develop. 1 patch (7.3) isn't enough for that.

[Djuntas]

Op racials, thats why everyone is still belf nelf and human?

This. Night elf has the best racial in all of WoW. Shadow meld saved me endless of times and druid + flight form is insane. Over my years of playing wow I prolly lived over 500 times more, and saved what 20-50 hours of my life cause of it.

[Zyrinx]

I think its a bad system only in the unlock requirements, but it's not even front-page of BfA's problems really.

[Paraka]

They did have 2 starter zones, Outland and eventually AU Draenor to explain their story though.

Even Argus is Draenei lore. All that Void Elves and LF Draenei had was Argus, and that was mainly Draenei lore, not backstory for the allied races.

LF Draenei are different because they're still Draenei but they still don't seem different enough to warrant being an allied race. They should've just given all the customization features to the original Draenei.

I don't mind them pulling races out of their arse as long as they give them time to develop. 1 patch (7.3) isn't enough for that.

I honestly don't think we will be getting isolated starter zones anymore going forward, even for a more traditionally fleshed out race. Just because there is that nagging eyesore of TBC still being the hindrance to a full traversible continent. Then Cata has zones that are ultimately tossed away once you're done with them. In that perspective, I can see the AR setting the stage for what is likely to come.

It's fair you're fine with them making new races out of the blue, and I agree give them time to develop. I recall the Draenei example I just gave when the dev team said they regretted not building more to the race because the community rejected them for being so "new" at the time. Looking back it's still pretty hard to imagine the story written differently.

VE are wierd in this, cause we as players are seeing first hand the birth of a new "race" as we play. Even with LFF and HMT, they not only had traditional lineage lore like VE, but supposedly been around for some time. Thousands of timeless years defeating Legion in some pocket dimension or protecting relics. VE has none of that, they never had time to do anything, we were right on top of them when they became a thing.

[The Anax]

I've given up on the Allied Race idea in that I love it, but when they announced it we as a commuity were excited. Polls sprang up to see what people wanted as allied races, and the ones at the top were ones that had been in the game a long time, Forest Trolls, Ogres, Mok'Nathol and so on, but, not only have they dragged their feet and not announced any future ones, worse, the ones that look like they will do like Vulpera and Mechagnomes had been WAY down the list of those we wanted.

That's not to say they should not make them available, but I think they are going to add new races that will be unlocked instead of the ones we have wanted for over a decade or ones already in the game. For example, the new fish people the Alliance get in Nazajatar instead of the Jin'yu they have worked with for years. So much potential, but I am thinking that they will take it in a direction I don't care to go.

[Schizoide]

Kul Tiran humans aside, Allied races are a lot of bang for the buck. Players see them as major highly anticipated features, but really they're just skins wrapped around a couple of quests, not requiring a lot of work to put into the game. They also result in a ton of race changes at $25 a pop, $60 boosts, and aid retention from players that level them up from 1. This is all gravy for Blizzard, and again players are all for it, so they're going to keep making them.

Frankly, I doubt we'll see any more races with traditional two zone 1-20 starting experiences.

[Zumi]

I think eventually will release high elves. They are too greedy for money not to. Because they realize how much money they will make for very little dev time. They know there is a large portion of the playerbase that wants them and will spend money on race changes. All they have to do is pallet swap blood elves with blue eyes. So first they give players something not quite want they want a void elf but still somewhat looks like what they want but not quite they make money on race changes. Now a year or 2 down the line they give them the elf race they really wanted Blizzard makes all that money again.

[Schizoide]

It's not even about being greedy. Players WANT high elves. Why not do it, if it makes players happy, it's easy to do, and it makes money? That's a win/win.

[Autoriot]

Yeah waiting over a year for some allied races that were marketed as a feature product of an expansion was totally a strong system.

They loved the fact they made a boat load of money on race changes at $25 a pop with having op racials and have further tools to stagnant "content" and keep their MAU numbers not at rock bottom.

Im actually pretty sad at what this game has become

Exactly what you said. It's quite obvious to anyone who takes a decent look at the Allied race "content", it was made to generate $$$ through race changes. Unless you enjoy leveling alts, there is nothing else about them. It is pay $25 to get the new look and/or new racials on a character you already are playing.

The idea to release Zandalari and Kul Tiran races mid-expansion is also all about $$$. If they released them at the start, they would compete with Dark Ion and Maghar Orcs, they wouldn't make as much $$$. They way they planned it, people might pay $25 to switch to DI/MO, and then again when the new races come out.

Also, at the start of the expansion, you could level an alt and gear it up fresh without "wasting" time on another char. That being said, even when they released DI/MO, it was tied to reps so you had to level something else first, then pay or re-level.
Even better, is releasing them mid expansion AND mid raid tier, it is pay $25 or start all over with the grind. Even if there is a ton of catch up gearing mechanics, it's still pay $25 or redo a bunch of your work.

The same can be said for store mounts. Make some neat meta achievement or secret and EARN the mount (in which someone might be enticed to pay a sub fee just to get it), all of which takes extra developer time. OR just slap it on the store and instantly collect $25.

[The Anax]

It's not even about being greedy. Players WANT high elves. Why not do it, if it makes players happy, it's easy to do, and it makes money? That's a win/win.

That's how I feel about a ton of races on Azeroth from Tuskar to Ogres, what does it matter. I use Daz Studio on a daily basis, and the amount of time it *should* take a 3D artist to make a race with the new rig they are using (it's shared between all races now), is as easy as adding morphs and tweaking it. That's why Sethrak have Pandaren and female worgen animations and such- it's all one rig they morph into anything now, so the time invested in making any race at all playable is a very tiny investment for a very large return on that investment through revenue whether for race changes, boosts, or just leveling and playing more WoW.

I cannot grasp the issue. And now, with them pulling so many more people onto the WoW team from other projects, that just means they have even more people to spend a week or two making 10 new playable races that start at lvl 20, suddenly, inside Orgrimmar. (It's not as if an Allied Race needs a starting zone, the player must have played quite a bit to even unlock them in the first place).

[Schizoide]

Speaking of ogres, I'm calling it right now-- horde will get allied race ogres, using the Kul Tiran human skeleton and animations. No way they're going to waste all that work on a single race.

People complaining about the delay, that was entirely due to Kul Tiran humans-- they aren't just a reskin, this is an entirely new skeleton with new animations. That's a ton of work.