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

[Zorachus]

When the Blood Elf race came out in BC, before I could create one, was I forced to go back to old vanilla content first and do a bunch of unlock rep ? No. Day one of the brand new expansion I could create one right away.

Death Knights released in Wrath, before playing a DK, was I forced to run old content in BC first ? Nope. Day one of the brand new expansion I could create one right away.

Panda's released in MoP, was I forced to do old quests and grind in Cataclysm first, before I was allowed to create a new Panda character ? No. Day one of the brand new expansion I could create one right away.

Demon Hunters were released in Legion, before I could create one, did I have to run old WoD Dreanor stuff first ? No. Day one of the brand new expansion I could create one right away.


So now with BfA, they advertise play with the new Allied races, such as Nightborne and Void Elf's, etc...Oh I know you paid us money for this expansion, but first we need you to go back to an old previous expansion, and play there for several weeks, working on outdated rep grind to unlock these new races first. That's BS

[FelPlague]

Let's be real here, though. No one asked for reskins cause up until now, it never happened. So obviously it wouldn't be realistic to imagine it happening. No that there is an existence to it, I am certain as time moves forward many will "settle" with whatever reskin they can get to match their desires.

i mean people asked for dark iron dwarves
people asked for high elves
people asked for highmountain tauren once they were shown
people asked for nightborne
people asked for maghar orcs
they have all been asked for, some of them for more then a decade. and most of them could never be more then reskins

[Martymark]

"The team loves not working very hard on the Allied Race system"

[threads]

i have yet to play any allied race. shouldn't have to pay for a race change for my orc to be a different color. also not going to level anything when i have every class max already. they are basically marketing/selling some color options for existing races as entirely new races which is dumb.

[meroko]

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

Hmm. But you got what they marketed as the feature product, which was lightforged, void elves, nightborne, and highmountain

The rest were advertised to come later in the expansion. So yeah you were told the truth.

[Kelathos]

The allied race system promotes race changes and level boosts. What's not to love? Just open up your wallet.

[Xeriv]

Characters (and thus races) are not content. They are the vehicles used to experience content. Allied race gating is like going “oh hey, you’re taking a trip to Italy and want to rent a sports car to tour around the county? Sounds awesome, but first you need to rent a Prius and complete most of your tour with that. Once you do that, then we’ll let you go back and tour the country again in a sports car.”

[Kyriani]

People will bitch, they will bitch even more than they did before they got high elves. A unique skeleton, brand new animations, all classes available to them. More customization than all other races combined, their own fucking city plus Silvermoon. A racial so OP that everyone will race change slash roll them. And they will still find things to bitch about, like how there aren't any other races to PVP against! Or they didn't get enough, or something fuck I don't know. All I know is they have hyped themselves up so much that the High Elf crowd will not be happy with anything they get!

So what you're telling me is that if Blizzard adds High Elves to the game, reading the forums will be more entertaining than actually playing the game. I'm sold!

[Pancreatin]

The allied race system promotes race changes and level boosts. What's not to love? Just open up your wallet.

The best system ever for the shareholders ofc.

[Alex86el]

hey, i dont mind extra races.
i wouldnt even mind if i had to buy them in the shop.
what i do mind is having to reach exalted to unlock them, and them not even being in the game at launch.

[therealbowser]

i would, if we still had multiple avenues of gaining rep. dailings, tabard dungeon grinds, just going out in the world and grinding specific mobs like in wod.

this shit of only getting rep from world quests is idiotic.

Well, sure. Rep tabards made rep grinding a breeze and let you run group content, which is (arguably) more fun and definitely less restrictive. But hey, that's just me.

I'd rather remove it altogether, but I'd gladly take rep-tabards being a thing over the current situation.

[Faerillis]

Lol, what a strawman
I said they prepared the Dreadwake in a package with 6-months sub plan. It doesn't mean, they made the mount specifically for that ocassion. They have tons of mounts made, that wouldn't even make into the game. It's not the problem of a mount being given to people - the problem is that under the cover of a mount, they try to sell the empty subs. Part of the people that bought that mount certainly stopped playing. I have no data to support that claim obviously, but it's also ignorant to play the game and not see the vast emptiness.

When it comes to the Allied Races over customization - this is super far-fetched argument. They literally didn't make a new model for the first 4 ones. This is riddiculous how you try to fill the gap with the idea of "fitting the story" or whatever else. The whole concept of Blood Elves being Void Elves is so Metin2-alike it hurts my heart. You know, I am not here for the sake of complaining without the reason. I have a serious attachment to that game. I hate seeing it's lore, storytelling and mechanics being destroyed or flooded with some tricky, retarded ideas.
Allied Races cannot withstand the weight of criticism in my opinion. Maybe I wouldn't believe it's a business thing, but seeing the Dreadwake action, 2 store mounts, "See You Later Bundle" to create an artificial demand in just 5 months time-span - it just cannot be ignored. Of course - Dreadwake is a Pirates Day mount, and the swine is a Chinese Year mount. And THAT'S why they aren't connected with any micro-holidays/ events/ quest-lines in-game, but sold for real money
The scale of microtransactions and this corrupting business model are getting out of control. If people do not believe it, it's okay. I am not a conspiracy theorycrafter. You don't need to be one, to understand the basics of economy that creep into the WoW. But whenever people white-knight and insanely, unconditionally defend something, that should be criticized, it makes me sad. Kul'Tirans and Zandalari Trolls are definitely a new model (kinda), and using it as a race is absolutely okay. Juts like Pandas and Goblins have been used. But the rest? It's like making a story specifically to fit the race. Not sure if you watched "Fantastic Beasts 2". Rowling said on Twitter that she kept a secret for 20 years about one of the characters - if you watched, you would know what I am talking about. It's a straightforward bullshit. She just made up a story with keeping the secret for 20 years, because nobody can disprove it... what a cheap marketing The same happens in WoW now.
And don't be fooled - "See You Later Bundle" will return

You clearly don't know what a strawman is but have heard that it's a good thing to say against someone's argument. A strawman would be me saying that it's only High Elf fans who rally against Allied Races and go on a long argument about how they shouldn't be included and people need to get over it. I would also like to point out that you have started both your responses so far attempting to besmirch my arguments not on their merits and it is really transparent.

You want to argue that Microtransactions are getting out of hand and that the Corporate overlords are trying to mine out WoW for nearly every spare drop of revenue they can get without regard for what they are doing to the IP? Cool. At least we agree on something. It's not the discussion. The argument isn't about the mounts or microtransactions that you dragged into this. It's about Allied Races.

Allied Races are literally cosmetic additions they separated out, yes partially to make them an Expansion feature (a fact I can't begrudge them, they still do take a decent amount of effort to make functional), but also to recognize them and their differed cultures/origins in-game and to be able to slot them in where ever they see fit, so that races like Nightborne can be in the Horde where they are actually suited rather than being a single tick mark. Now, I don't know what the fuck a Metic2 is from more than a cursory google search but I don't see how a Korean grindfest has any relevance here nor why anyone would play one to begin with; the Void Elves are a halfway point they could meet people on for High Elves AND it allowed them to include an interesting dichotomy in the Alliance Allied Races (Light v Void) and give examples of the Void being used for and integral to some good people.

On top of allowing different subsects of races that may have extremely different cultures to be available to different factions, the Allied Races also added a second cosmetic system over-and-above this: Heritage Armours. Now Heritage Armours inherently punish people who would Race Swap or Boost their characters. They literally do everything in their power except restrict the player's ability to actually go ahead and do those two things to say "DO NOT USE RACE SWAP OR BOOST" so to say that Blizzard put them in as some sort of cashcow regarding those two 'services'... yeah I 100% have to call bullshit. It is honestly shocking the Devs were allowed to do this given how much they are clearly being hounded to keep tossing in new revenue farms

[Firedemon]

They literally do everything in their power except restrict the player's ability to actually go ahead and do those two things to say "DO NOT USE RACE SWAP OR BOOST" so to say that Blizzard put them in as some sort of cashcow regarding those two 'services'... yeah I 100% have to call bullshit. It is honestly shocking the Devs were allowed to do this given how much they are clearly being hounded to keep tossing in new revenue farms

Lol. Heritage armor is just another set of appearance in a game where you can get well over 50 full sets (tier sets + pvp sets + other classes tier sets reskins + random sets), so missing out on heritage isn't really as punishing as you make it out to be.

[lostinwoods]

With WoW bleeding subs and the development team and Ion still intact, only tells me they are making enough money from the cash shop to supplement the loss in subs.
You have a mature player base, that have money, and a major time investment into the game. The game is in full maintenance mode and isn't attracting new players, which means the budget for the game will decrease annually, which means more cuts of top talent, less innovation and more pruning for easier balancing.

[RangerDaz]

The allied race system promotes race changes and level boosts. What's not to love? Just open up your wallet.

Even that they sabotage (themselves). Or you pay the boost and loose the heritage, or you level the character to get the heritage and don't pay the services.

- - - Updated - - -

When the Blood Elf race came out in BC, before I could create one, was I forced to go back to old vanilla content first and do a bunch of unlock rep ? No. Day one of the brand new expansion I could create one right away.

Death Knights released in Wrath, before playing a DK, was I forced to run old content in BC first ? Nope. Day one of the brand new expansion I could create one right away.

Panda's released in MoP, was I forced to do old quests and grind in Cataclysm first, before I was allowed to create a new Panda character ? No. Day one of the brand new expansion I could create one right away.

Demon Hunters were released in Legion, before I could create one, did I have to run old WoD Dreanor stuff first ? No. Day one of the brand new expansion I could create one right away.


So now with BfA, they advertise play with the new Allied races, such as Nightborne and Void Elf's, etc...Oh I know you paid us money for this expansion, but first we need you to go back to an old previous expansion, and play there for several weeks, working on outdated rep grind to unlock these new races first. That's BS

I have to agree 100% on this, although i unlocked all four allied races in legion.

Having to do legacy content to unlock a feature from the current expansion is not the right thing to do.
But Blizzard has been doing so many uncorrect choices for the game, that all this negative feedback seems to be deserved.

Allied races could have been one extremely successful selling point, but if we go to statistics websites like realmpop we can see the numbers of the allied races aren't tremendous, as they should have been. The reason for me is all the ridiculous restrictions they added to unlock them and play them at max level. Allied races' concept is popular, the races on the other hand aren't, because they are more a prestige reward for who works months ingame for each one of them rather than an easily accessible thing.

[Faerillis]

Lol. Heritage armor is just another set of appearance in a game where you can get well over 50 full sets (tier sets + pvp sets + other classes tier sets reskins + random sets), so missing out on heritage isn't really as punishing as you make it out to be.

Ok if you are interested in Allied Races you are interested in Cosmetics. Literally that is what they are, a cosmetic with a different system for using it. If you are interested in a race that is 90% Cosmetic, you are most certainly going to give a fuck about that race's exclusive, racially themed armour set. That is punishment.

[RangerDaz]

They reap the benefits from both - people want to have the armor, so they level the toons (+MAU)
Then they want the cool look for their main so they pay for race change (+cash)

They also loose lots of potential from the allied races with this decision, instead of maximizing profits.

People have to choose to level directly that character right to the current expansion and play it... or find the patience to level everything from level 20, which makes many simply abandoning their characters in the middle of the leveling process (myself included).

They could allow the heritage to be also acquired with boosts or racechanges, like Blood Elves and dwarves allow today, and so people won't feel guitly for using race changes or boosts on the allied races.

[Firedemon]

Ok if you are interested in Allied Races you are interested in Cosmetics.

Not really. There will plenty of min-maxers that are only interested in racial advantages and not at all about cosmetics.

And even for players caring about cosmetics, races are about the model and animations not on 1 armor set.

[Firedemon]

They also loose lots of potential from the allied races with this decision, instead of maximizing profits.

People have to choose to level directly that character right to the current expansion and play it... or find the patience to level everything from level 20, which makes many simply abandoning their characters in the middle of the leveling process (myself included).

They could allow the heritage to be also acquired with boosts or racechanges, like Blood Elves and dwarves allow today, and so people won't feel guitly for using race changes or boosts on the allied races.

They have just slightly won something right there. Instead of playing the max level content and getting bored with it sooner, you spent some time getting bored on re-leveling. Now you have to get bored on the rest of the content before maybe considering unsubbing. Or if you are already bored with the content, instead of usubbing you just played a little longer before you got bored of re-leveling. (of course this applies to players that unsub frequently and only sub for a few months when new content is added and not to players that are always subbed no matter what).

[RangerDaz]

If they allowed that, they'd lose the MAU boost that AR gives them now. They don't want to do that. They want to keep people in the game, logging in - and having to level alts for the cosmetic armor is perfect way to do this.

It is far from perfect. They could give other incentives to level characters. Only allied races have heritage armor as the only incentive to level now? What about the normal races?

Actually getting heritage armor for leveling content where these races didn't even exist in azeroth doesn't make sense at all. They could give titles, achievements or feats of strength, whatever, and this would also help giving incentives to level other normal races. Perfect system is the new blood elf and dwarf way to achieve their heritages, which you can get through leveling, boost or race change.

And just check realmpop and you will see that the numbers of allied races are just small compared to the normal races. They should have been much bigger than they are today. For me the reasons are the heavy unlock requirements and forcing to get allied race heritages through leveling. They could for example send the exalted requirement exclusively to get the heritages, and not required for the allied race unlock.

- - - Updated - - -

They have just slightly won something right there. Instead of playing the max level content and getting bored with it sooner, you spent some time getting bored on re-leveling. Now you have to get bored on the rest of the content before maybe considering unsubbing. Or if you are already bored with the content, instead of usubbing you just played a little longer before you got bored of re-leveling. (of course this applies to players that unsub frequently and only sub for a few months when new content is added and not to players that are always subbed no matter what).

See my reply above.