[8.3 PTR] 2 More Allied Races before 9.0 Inc?

[Edlarel]

I've been looking these up again today, and if you look at this picture, you can see that the female mogu would very much share the female worgen model.



meanwhile, the males are just bulkier male worgen in their actions and general way they hold themselves. It's looking more and more like rajani could be our final horde race. But, that means alliance would either get a free race with lightborne (assuming that's who they receive to mimic undead) or they'll have a faction they need rep with starting in 8.3.5.

If anybody knows before I can find it or remember, do the horde currently have a "free" race that doesn't require faction but alliance does? Mag'har maybe?

*EDIT*

Here we go! Okay, so they do have requirements for all of them, which means we're likely getting an 8.3.5 neutral faction related to undead that will complete our storylines leading into SL. When alliance reach exalted, they get lightborn. Horde probably get a "conclusion" to their storyline, perhaps with a Sylvanas loyalty tie-in.

[Mutineer]

Sorry don't remember which one just remember it was said in one of them, there was a post of it on the main page

No worries! I took a look through the front page postings and found it here.

Q: Is there a possibility of playable races with more or less than two legs now that Mechagnomes are a thing?
A: If it is appropriate to the story then maybe! They got new tech for mechagnomes and can explore it now.

[Ameonna]

Ho and i forgot to say that about the mogu they still "kinda" said in interview a verry confusing sentence saying mogu will be allied race and the still didnt say this was mistake if im right

here : https://youtu.be/iFENH69jqKA?t=339

I've been looking these up again today, and if you look at this picture, you can see that the female mogu would very much share the female worgen model.



meanwhile, the males are just bulkier male worgen in their actions and general way they hold themselves. It's looking more and more like rajani could be our final horde race. But, that means alliance would either get a free race with lightborne (assuming that's who they receive to mimic undead) or they'll have a faction they need rep with starting in 8.3.5.

If anybody knows before I can find it or remember, do the horde currently have a "free" race that doesn't require faction but alliance does? Mag'har maybe?

*EDIT*

Here we go! Okay, so they do have requirements for all of them, which means we're likely getting an 8.3.5 neutral faction related to undead that will complete our storylines leading into SL. When alliance reach exalted, they get lightborn. Horde probably get a "conclusion" to their storyline, perhaps with a Sylvanas loyalty tie-in.

Well mogu female use female draenai skeleton in the way they walk and "die" but they have unique animaiton other than thoses 2 ones which are closer to female draenai, they have unique cast animaiton and unique attack animation too

As for male they use male draenai rig

Maybe alliance can have broken, i saw a cool female concept here : https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DnGASR5XsAE2udF.jpg:large

[Edlarel]

Larger post with explanation

Okay, building on the fact that rajani/mogu use similar-but-distinct models from worgen, and lightborn will likely be in the same vein as Calia/Derek, let's play with classes for a moment. Reasonably, we can see the following options.

Lightborn
hunter
death knight, hunter, mage, monk, paladin, priest, rogue, warrior

Mogu
death knight, hunter, mage, monk, priest, rogue, shaman, warrior

I can't see either getting warlock, and obviously they won't have demon hunter (but that would be awesome for mogu down the road). While druid could be interesting, the likelihood of us getting another set of druid forms is slim at best. There's a chance we get shamans, a'la raised kul'tirans, but can we get paladin mogu because of their worship of ra'den?

Any other possibilities?

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Well mogu female use female draenai skeleton in the way they walk and "die" but they have unique animaiton other than thoses 2 ones which are closer to female draenai, they have unique cast animaiton and unique attack animation too

As for male they use male draenai rig

Maybe alliance can have broken =p

While, yes, that is true of those particular models, I was comparing the possibility of their updated look to these, which would put them more in the shape of worgen female, with the smaller bend to their legs, rather than draenei who have a more exaggerated bend. Even if that isn't the case, it still makes sense.

[Yarathir]

Hopefully Alliance Ankoan and Horde Mogu.

[Ujimasa Hojo]

Were there any other NPC races that got updated models as of late?

[Maxilian]

I hate every single one of you that are putting the "Lightborne" undead as a viable option.... *Disgust*

Exageration aside, fuck those Calia copies!

Just give us Ankoan + Jinyu for the Alliance and something else for the Horde (heck i take even Gilgoblins as long as we stay as far away from the abomination that Lightborne undead are)

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Okay, building on the fact that rajani/mogu use similar-but-distinct models from worgen, and lightborn will likely be in the same vein as Calia/Derek, let's play with classes for a moment. Reasonably, we can see the following options.

Lightborn
hunter
death knight, hunter, mage, monk, paladin, priest, rogue, warrior

Mogu
death knight, hunter, mage, monk, priest, rogue, shaman, warrior

I can't see either getting warlock, and obviously they won't have demon hunter (but that would be awesome for mogu down the road). While druid could be interesting, the likelihood of us getting another set of druid forms is slim at best. There's a chance we get shamans, a'la raised kul'tirans, but can we get paladin mogu because of their worship of ra'den?

Why can't you see Mogu being Warlocks? they are great casters, to the point that they have innate magic (they don't have to learn it), and they don't call each other by class name (when it come to casters -no mages or warlocks-), but i feel like we have seen Mogu cast fel based spells already (i may be wrong)

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Ho and i forgot to say that about the mogu they still "kinda" said in interview a verry confusing sentence saying mogu will be allied race and the still didnt say this was mistake if im right

There can be hope, but i feel that if they go with Mogu, the Alliance will get Ankoan, and we have a lot of people saying that the Alliance got the short stick of it (again)

[Florena]

I can't 100% rule it out but I'd be surprised if there are allied races coming and they didn't announce them already.

[plz delete account]

I could see Mok'nathal for the Horde (using the Kul'Tiran base) and Broken draenei (using the Tauren base like they currently do) or, personal preference here, furbolgs using the pandaren base on Alliance. The latter wouldn't require too much model work, just slim down the stomach, edit the hands/forearms, and put in new heads.

"Base"? They all use the same skeleton. @Steampunkette did a nice PSA on this.

[Florena]

There can be hope, but i feel that if they go with Mogu, the Alliance will get Ankoan, and we have a lot of people saying that the Alliance got the short stick of it (again)

Honestly I don't really feel we have. The only really 'inferior' allied race I think we got is void elves on a lore perspective since they were pulled out of nowhere where nightborne we spent half of an expansion getting to know. But that's about it. Lightforged were no more lackluster than highmountain tauren IMO and dark iron, kul tiran and mechagnomes are great.

[Maxilian]

I can't 100% rule it out but I'd be surprised if there are allied races coming and they didn't announce them already.

Well... i assume it will go just like it went with Lightforged and Highmountain Tauren, as a pre-expansion patch, to have people do stuff while they wait for the next expansion

[Hugnomo]

"Base"? They all use the same skeleton. @Steampunkette did a nice PSA on this.

I think you are equivocating what that PSA means. Regardless of every animation having a universal rig - which facilitates things like the universal Heart of Azeroth animation for example - it doesn't mean that there aren't animation archetypes. It doesn't make sense for Kultiran to be animated in the same way gnomes are, or humans the same way orcs are. Their bodies and movements are different, therefore they use different sets of animation for each characterization. So, in terms of eficiency, Blizzard does look to produce allied races which fit animation sets from already playable races.
Yes, Rexxar does use the same animations as the Kultiran, and therefore is a sensible guess for an ogre or mok'nathal allied race. Don't know if it'll happen, but it's within how they approach allied races.

[Maxilian]

Honestly I don't really feel we have. The only really 'inferior' allied race I think we got is void elves on a lore perspective since they were pulled out of nowhere where nightborne we spent half of an expansion getting to know. But that's about it. Lightforged were no more lackluster than highmountain tauren IMO and dark iron, kul tiran and mechagnomes are great.

To be fair, i think the Alliance have the best options of Arace, but only if Blizzard plan on working over them, both mechanically and storywise.

I mean... Storywise, i feel like the Alliance would end up accepting the Lightforged more and more, to the point that we could see some followers of the Church of light try the Ascension ritual of the LF, i mean... come on, the head of the LF is a human, so i see no reason to not have humans to be accepted for this ritual.

Same for Void Elf and Night Elves (even more with the whole spirit of Vengeance stuff that the NE have now), i'm also quite interested to see if the introduction of this 2 opposites to the same faction will have any relevance in the future (hope so), i mean... we do see the people in the Church of Light tell Void Elves to leave the Church if they go in there or, just to not stay for long there.

[plz delete account]

I think you are equivocating what that PSA means. Regardless of every animation having a universal rig - which facilitates things like the universal Heart of Azeroth animation for example - it doesn't mean that there aren't animation archetypes. It doesn't make sense for Kultiran to be animated in the same way gnomes are, or humans the same way orcs are. Their bodies and movements are different, therefore they use different sets of animation for each characterization. So, in terms of eficiency, Blizzard does look to produce allied races which fit animation sets from already playable races.
Yes, Rexxar does use the same animations as the Kultiran, and therefore is a sensible guess for an ogre or mok'nathal allied race. Don't know if it'll happen, but it's within how they approach allied races.

The URS rig is also baked into the model, so...

[Mutineer]

I'd really like sethrak, but unless they suddenly show up in Uldum in force, I'm not going to hold any illusion that they're still a possibility.

Ankoan or jinyu could be cool, but that's only if Blizzard puts some serious effort into developing their models and animations. As they are, the whole fish-headed male night elf thing just really doesn't do it for me. Give them better proportions, some unique animations, and cool racial skills and I'll be a lot more interested.

As for the Horde, those new mogu would make a very cool addition. The Unshackled gilblins would make sense storywise, but I have a hard time seeing them happening considering we just got vulpera and both races are derived from the goblin models.

[Hardwing]

At first, I wasn't in for the idea of more Allied Races, simply because Blizzard seems to be done with them and frankly, given the length of leveling at the moment, who needs more? They probably already put a lot of work in the new customization options, which will bring us a lot of minor/not so different races.

Yet, there is still a pre-patch before 9.0 and given the amount of work they put into streamlining the leveling-process, I think Blizz could implement it early, let's say two months before the launch of the new content. Just so people could concentrate on it. The two classic Allied Races would be for the players who only have BfA, while those who preordered Shadowlands can already use the new customization options. This would be a good way to fight the draught between the expansions, without having to create too much new stuff.

Which these could be, well they have all be named before, but here my take:
Lightforged(A)/San'layn(H) => A good introduction to Shadowlands.
Anakoan/Jinyu(A)/Mogu(H) => The Pandaria AR-pack.
Bothani(A)/Saberon(H) => The Wild Card, but kinda back to the roots to heal the wounds. Alliance gets plants-lovers, Horde gets the savages.

Of course, there could be a wild mix, there could be surprises like Hozen(H), Furbolgs(A), Half-Orc(H), Sethrak(A) or even High Elves(A), but they have discussed before and better than I could.

[Yarathir]

I hate every single one of you that are putting the "Lightborne" undead as a viable option.... *Disgust*

I agree. I was hoping the fact that Calia wasn't going to be either a big Alliance or Horde character would get people to stop mentioning them. They'd be one of the most boring races we got so far.

There can be hope, but i feel that if they go with Mogu, the Alliance will get Ankoan, and we have a lot of people saying that the Alliance got the short stick of it (again)

Possibly, but there would be a lot less truth to it.

Mechagnomes are still Gnomes, just with mechanical limbs (and sacrificed transmog options with that)
Vulpera are on the Goblin rig, but with enough custom anims and a unique model to make them seem like their own species.

Currently, Ankoan/Jinyu are on the Night Elf skeleton, but if they're given a few unique animations, like Vulpera and Zandalari Trolls were, most of that Night Elf vibe will go away.

Similarly, Mogu males and the two (three?) females we've seen are built on the male and female Draenei rig respectively. They'd also need some unique anims to offset it, but all-around could still be built on the Draenei skeletons.

[Ameonna]

Something like these guys would be cool. We might get Venthyr instead in the future though

I am 100% thoses shadowlands vampires will be the alternative for the san'leyn but we are taking about bfa ar here

I can't 100% rule it out but I'd be surprised if there are allied races coming and they didn't announce them already.

Well they wont announce it if it would spoil the next patch

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Why can't you see Mogu being Warlocks? they are great casters, to the point that they have innate magic (they don't have to learn it), and they don't call each other by class name (when it come to casters -no mages or warlocks-), but i feel like we have seen Mogu cast fel based spells already (i may be wrong)

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There can be hope, but i feel that if they go with Mogu, the Alliance will get Ankoan, and we have a lot of people saying that the Alliance got the short stick of it (again)

Well, yeah i think mogu could be warlock this is up to blizzard since mogu always liked to study and contorl forbidden magics, as for alliance having the shortest side of the stick well..are they not the pone who want the high elves verry hard which is ar who requier no work at all ><

As for LF undead i dont know, i would think they would be alliance option more than horde by using calia model or derek but still i think jinyu would be better

[Yarathir]

I can't 100% rule it out but I'd be surprised if there are allied races coming and they didn't announce them already.

If we look at release dates of previous Allied Races, I agree with you. But looking at that gap in the list, that seems be a list of BfA ARs.
If Shadowlands adds more related ARs, I doubt it'll just be one on either side so it feels like they're planning to just finish off the list of BfA Allied Races, and if they ever make new ones, they'll be on their own list, maybe next to the BfA ones.

Whether or not they can have something in time for 8.3.5 is wholly up to how long they might have been working on them. If they have been working on them for a while, they may have had them in the database since earlier patches, or maybe they started development of them alongside 8.2 development (if it's, for example, Ankoan for the Alliance)

[Maxilian]

Possibly, but there would be a lot less truth to it.

Mechagnomes are still Gnomes, just with mechanical limbs (and sacrificed transmog options with that)
Vulpera are on the Goblin rig, but with enough custom anims and a unique model to make them seem like their own species.

Currently, Ankoan/Jinyu are on the Night Elf skeleton, but if they're given a few unique animations, like Vulpera and Zandalari Trolls were, most of that Night Elf vibe will go away.

Similarly, Mogu males and the two (three?) females we've seen are built on the male and female Draenei rig respectively. They'd also need some unique anims to offset it, but all-around could still be built on the Draenei skeletons.

I do agree, i personally think that the Jinyu and Ankoan are unique enough to not feel like the shafted the Alliance, even more if they do add both together (Jinyu and Ankoan).

And the female Mogu, i'm ok even if they don't get unique animations, in the end, we do not have those animations in the Horde (and i do like the female Draneai animation), though i do feel that the Mogu are a questionable option but... hey, we already have questionable AR options so not that bad

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Well, yeah i think mogu could be warlock this is up to blizzard since mogu always liked to study and contorl forbidden magics, as for alliance having the shortest side of the stick well..are they not the pone who want the high elves verry hard which is ar who requier no work at all ><

Fair enough

As for LF undead i dont know, i would think they would be alliance option more than horde by using calia model or derek but still i think jinyu would be better

Well... if they do add this abominations, it will be in the Alliance, but IMHO that's still really bad for the story development of the Forsaken.