"The initial story of the Shadowlands doesn't really fit adding Allied Races"

[Khrux]

becoming lore experts on week old lore and acting like complete fucking tools

The difference here is that an interview at Blizzcon with Steve Danuser (Lead Narrative Designer for WoW) who confirmed the following:

1. The covenants are made up of dead Azerothians who take on a new form in the Shadowlands based on where they are assigned in the afterlife.
2. If those beings returned to Azeroth they'd return to the form they had in life, ie. a dead human goes Kyrian and becomes blue, if they were given a 2nd chance they'd be a regular human again. Not a blue guy.
3. Only the lesser beings in the Shadowlands are native to the zones, the examples given were the Owl creatures in Kyrian and the little "treasure goblin" dudes in Revendreth. These are the "caretakers" of each covenant and help the souls of the dead find a purpose. The Blue Humans, Fae Goat people, Vampires etc. are dead Azerothians that only look that way in the afterlife. They are not a "race" of people.
4. Only us players and notable NPCs who cross over with us, retain our Azeroth forms because we're not actually dead. So our souls don't take a new form and purpose.

Now can all of the above change over time? Of course

But whether you deem it "week old lore" or not, its still the facts we have now. They are stating the story of Shadowlands doesn't support allied races, which makes sense when we're not at war, we're not in an arms race to recruit more soldiers and the people we'll meet in Shadowlands are dead and cannot cross back to the living world (and if they did they'd be back to their original form and not retain their afterlife appearance)

So TLDR; unless they do a complete flip flop on the story they are setting up now. There is no "races" from the covenants that can be playable characters outside of Shadowlands.

[plz delete account]

Who cares, we should have gotten a new class anyway after getting a piss load of allied races to varying degrees of disappointment (here's emo elves and draenei with tattoos and brown orcs, have fun grinding away!) but apparently a new class didn't make sense eiher because of new customize options which is code for "adding more faces and re-paint options is easier than designing a new class."

Hey Kyphael, look at my sig and shut up about grinding for the love of god

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The difference here is that an interview at Blizzcon with Steve Danuser (Lead Narrative Designer for WoW) who confirmed the following:

1. The covenants are made up of dead Azerothians who take on a new form in the Shadowlands based on where they are assigned in the afterlife.
2. If those beings returned to Azeroth they'd return to the form they had in life, ie. a dead human goes Kyrian and becomes blue, if they were given a 2nd chance they'd be a regular human again. Not a blue guy.
3. Only the lesser beings in the Shadowlands are native to the zones, the examples given were the Owl creatures in Kyrian and the little "treasure goblin" dudes in Revendreth. These are the "caretakers" of each covenant and help the souls of the dead find a purpose. The Blue Humans, Fae Goat people, Vampires etc. are dead Azerothians that only look that way in the afterlife. They are not a "race" of people.
4. Only us players and notable NPCs who cross over with us, retain our Azeroth forms because we're not actually dead. So our souls don't take a new form and purpose.

Now can all of the above change over time? Of course

But whether you deem it "week old lore" or not, its still the facts we have now. They are stating the story of Shadowlands doesn't support allied races, which makes sense when we're not at war, we're not in an arms race to recruit more soldiers and the people we'll meet in Shadowlands are dead and cannot cross back to the living world (and if they did they'd be back to their original form and not retain their afterlife appearance)

So TLDR; unless they do a complete flip flop on the story they are setting up now. There is no "races" from the covenants that can be playable characters outside of Shadowlands.

That's a mighty fucking big headcanon you've got already. Prepare to potentially be disappointed.

[Kyphael]

Hey Kyphael, look at my sig and shut up about grinding for the love of god

Joke's on you! I have every allied race rep to exalted but Rustbolt (because I don't want Mechagnomes) and I STILL don't have pathfinder!

[Khrux]

That's a mighty fucking big headcanon you've got already. Prepare to potentially be disappointed.

The difference here is that an interview at Blizzcon with Steve Danuser (Lead Narrative Designer for WoW) who confirmed the following

Are you blind or just an idiot?

[plz delete account]

The difference here is that an interview at Blizzcon with Steve Danuser (Lead Narrative Designer for WoW) who confirmed the following

Are you blind or just an idiot?

And how many times has Danuser been overridden at a later date by Alex or Ion?
Please, remind me.

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Joke's on you! I have every allied race rep to exalted but Rustbolt (because I don't want Mechagnomes) and I STILL don't have pathfinder!

Then stop complaining about rep requirements for shit you've done. It's annoying and makes you look like a stuck up british posh empire-inheriting manchild.

[Kyphael]

Then stop complaining about rep requirements for shit you've done. It's annoying and makes you look like a stuck up british posh empire-inheriting manchild.

How do you know my backstory!?

[RobertMugabe]

why even care about reskinned races in first place?
unless they use a unique skeleton model as every race in wow used to, i don't give a f8ck about half-assed reskinned races, if anything i feel it is a spit in face and called content

FYI every race in the game uses the same "skeleton".

[plz delete account]

How do you know my backstory!?

I've got my ways. Who wants their backstory guessed at next?

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why even care about reskinned races in first place?
unless they use a unique skeleton model as every race in wow used to, i don't give a f8ck about half-assed reskinned races, if anything i feel it is a spit in face and called content

So uh...

There's this thing called the Unified Race Skeleton, and it makes you look really, really dumb.

[Hugnomo]

FYI every race in the game uses the same "skeleton".

It seems this is true. But, and while I absolutely disagree with the criticism made by the poster, it doesn't contradict his point.

There are still sets of animations that are used and reused for certain animation archetypes, rather than created from scratch. It's just way more efficient resources wise. And I don't think it negatively impacts new races at all, quite the contrary. (particularly since it means they have more freedom to produce more).
For example, the Night fae are fauns, half goat half humanoid. Why create new sets of animations for a character archetype for which they have already developed animations, aka the draenei. So yes, the Night fae seem to be using female draenei animations. Necrolords are using Zandalari, Venthyr are using Nightborne and Kyrian are using, what appears to me, female vrykul animations. I can only confirm this once I get them on a modelviewer, but from what we were shown, I think it's a safe bet.
Having a universal skeleton means they can create universal animations like the heart of azeroth one, but they still need diverse sets of animations to characterize each race. At least that's my assumption.

[Martymark]

I mean, would you have preferred they just said, "We didn't want to do allied races at this time"?

Yes. Why go to the extra effort to lie to us?

[sam86]

FYI every race in the game uses the same "skeleton".

no they don't
Goblins used to share it with gnomes, but when they were given proper race in cata, they got their own unique model
Also the tools i used to check were for pre-WoD era (i think the files back then were called mpq, now they use different extinction)
Every major race use a total different set than another, many monsters btw also use different sets, then u enter monsters that use different skin but same skeleton as i mentioned before Goblins pre-cata and gnomes, those tiny demon things in TBC, and so on
Blizz always did that since day 1, use a base skeleton of a race for as many mobs as possible, they only started to abuse that for reskinned race in legion

[RobertMugabe]

no they don't
Goblins used to share it with gnomes, but when they were given proper race in cata, they got their own unique model
Also the tools i used to check were for pre-WoD era (i think the files back then were called mpq, now they use different extinction)
Every major race use a total different set than another, many monsters btw also use different sets, then u enter monsters that use different skin but same skeleton as i mentioned before Goblins pre-cata and gnomes, those tiny demon things in TBC, and so on
Blizz always did that since day 1, use a base skeleton of a race for as many mobs as possible, they only started to abuse that for reskinned race in legion

LOL ^^ ... You don't know what you're talking about mate. Also what does their packaging format has to do with any of that haha

[plz delete account]

no they don't
Goblins used to share it with gnomes, but when they were given proper race in cata, they got their own unique model
Also the tools i used to check were for pre-WoD era (i think the files back then were called mpq, now they use different extinction)
Every major race use a total different set than another, many monsters btw also use different sets, then u enter monsters that use different skin but same skeleton as i mentioned before Goblins pre-cata and gnomes, those tiny demon things in TBC, and so on
Blizz always did that since day 1, use a base skeleton of a race for as many mobs as possible, they only started to abuse that for reskinned race in legion

lmao
you don't know why they wanted to remodel everything in WOD?

[EbaumsTipster]

2. If those beings returned to Azeroth they'd return to the form they had in life, ie. a dead human goes Kyrian and becomes blue, if they were given a 2nd chance they'd be a regular human again. Not a blue guy.

This is not confirmed by anything said by any developer at Blizzcon, and is the most damning thing against Shadowlands races being playable. Ergo the most crucial evidence you have is pulled out your ass.

[Thetruth1400]

I'm not sure they would care for faction affiliation either.

Nothing says Allied races have to choose one faction over the other, that was just Blizzard forcing a narrative on us.

Pandaren, while not an Allied race, were free to choose faction.

To varying degrees, both factions helped the Nightborne, Highmountain Tauren, Lightforged Draenei, and Mechagnomes to the point of being literally exalted figures within their communities. Instead of being neutral or having the freedom of choice though, Blizzard decided, for very arbitrary reasons, that they'd pick one side or the other though, even though it made very little sense on a grand scale and not a person to person choice.


So yeah, I can see OPs point of them being ideal Allied races (ignoring the fact that they're dead and in a world that is / kind of isn't connected to ours) but they would definitely have to be like the Pandaren; choosing a faction at a personal level, not a forced, arbitrary choice.

[EbaumsTipster]

To varying degrees, both factions helped the Nightborne, Highmountain Tauren, Lightforged Draenei, and Mechagnomes to the point of being literally exalted figures within their communities. Instead of being neutral or having the freedom of choice though, Blizzard decided, for very arbitrary reasons, that they'd pick one side or the other though, even though it made very little sense on a grand scale and not a person to person choice.

They also did this with Mechagnomes within BFA: people will say "oh well Mechagnomes suck they don't count blah blah" but the precedent still shows that Blizzard doesn't give a shit whether or not a race SHOULD be neutral or not. The Shadowlands ARs are very very likely going to go on one faction or another based on their aesthetics and the lore figures they interact with: Kyrians being BLUE HUMANS hanging with Uther and the Venthyr being an elf-like (yes, they are very much like Nightborne) race with Kaelthas is a huge hint they will go Horde, regardless of it fucking over the Alliance and Horde players who side with them.

[klogaroth]

Are covenants races? There may be races that live (die?) in those bits of the Shadowlands, but I thought covenants were larger groups comprised of many races depending on whoever is knocking about those areas because either that's where they always existed, or that's where their mortal deeds landed them. It's those groups that we ally with, rather than individual races within them.

[Khrux]

This is not confirmed by anything said by any developer at Blizzcon, and is the most damning thing against Shadowlands races being playable. Ergo the most crucial evidence you have is pulled out your ass.

Sure random internet crybaby, I take your word over the lead narrative designer.

Keep dreaming about your edgelord vampires at night. You'll never be playing one.

[EbaumsTipster]

Sure random internet crybaby, I take your word over the lead narrative designer.

Keep dreaming about your edgelord vampires at night. You'll never be playing one.

Go ahead and link any information from a dev that says a Shadowlands creature reverts back to their original form outside of the Shadowlands.

You can't.

[bloodmoth13]

I thought the covenants were all magic beings so not allied race material? Also they either all go neutral or split between factions. I wont mind if none become playable