Review: Was Allied Races the right approach? or would customisations have been fine?

[Yarathir]

I think they are distinct enough for them to be a valid allied race. Of course, this is just my opinion.

I mean now that we have them, I wouldn't want them to be removed since being an allied race allows them more unique options. But they're pretty much just as distinct as Wildhammers, which will just be a Dwarf customization option in Shadowlands.

In the end, I feel like allied races should offer.. well, a new race. Not on a technical level. They can reuse a skeleton, but a new model, a new species, not just a variation of an existing one. Vulpera do that well. Zandalari do, too. Mechagnomes do this poorly, as do Lightforged, Highmountain, Mag'har, and as much as I like them, Dark Irons.

[Nathanyel]

minus the insane requirements for unlocking allied races thru time gating mechanics, [...]

I really dont understand this argument. The only two ARs which you couldn't pre-farm before they were available were the Mag'har/Dark Iron. And reputation and quest progress really is something that comes naturally, unless you insist that M+ and raiding are the only worthwhile activities at maxlevel.

[Shakana]

Void elves - High elf customization
Lightforged - Draenei customization
Highmountain - Tauren customization
Mag'har - Still allied race, they have a really big story behind
Zandalari - Allied Race
Nightborne - Allied Race
Vulpera - Allied Race
Kultirans - Human customization / slide body
Mecha-gnome - Gnome customization
Dark Iron - Customization of Dwarves

[Weeps]

Allied races plus more customization? That's what every MMORPGer would like.

I just wish there was so many options that nearly no two toons look alike.

[Jikate-Stormrage]

Completely subjective perspective to follow.

I’m indifferent about allied races. I think that if they wanted to add them, they should be constrained to 1 per faction; last patch of the expansion.

My reasoning is that is where they belong. As a feature of the next expansion; but released one patch early for relative equality at the launch of the new expansion.

Outside of that, releasing them mid expansion feels superfluous at best. Great, you want me to level another toon through the same content I have already experienced x 15 years. This certainly will not take my mind off of the lack of compelling content to do at max level.

They change nothing but the model/skin, animations, and racials. That may be enough for some, but I cannot call that compelling content. You are still casting frostbolt, shield slam, aimed shot, etc. And honestly, they should be ashamed for shipping allied races while the classes are so boring to play.

Come to think of it, I can’t think of a time in WoWs history that there has been more things to do at max level.... but it all feels so empty. It feels like allied races are something nice they added, but is now relegated to being a Mcguffin they throw out when they know the actual content is horrible. Holding a feature back for so long that I have paid for, as it was a selling feature of the expansion, didn’t help either.

That said; half of the allied races should have been customizations. The other half could have been new races. But the lack of a real customization screen is kind of shitty this late into the games life cycle. Something so common shouldn’t be missing from a game that has historically waited for other companies to figure out the tech before implementing it in WoW.

[nonameelf]

Most of the allied races were just customizations and offered nothing new in terms of model or class availability.

Like what's even the point of lightforged draenei or cowmountain tauren?

And even those that did offer something new like Kul Tirans was shit no one asked for. Who even wanted fat humans?

[Kyphael]

Yes - but not with the approach or selections they chose.

Mag'har, Highmountain, and Lightforged could have been customizations.

[Lane]

Void Elves -Removed, and replaced with something like Argus Broken or tuskar

Vulpera - Removed and replaced with Vrykul for example

I know it's your opinion, but i fixed it for myself
I don't know if you missed it, but I replaced the junk with actual Legion races we helped, something they only did with 50% at the end.

Horde getting Vrykul would've meant that literally every race we helped in Legion decided not to join the Alliance. I can only imagine how well that would've gone. Regardless, I'm not sure either side is ever going to get Vrykul. Blizzard has missed multiple opportunities to give Alliance Vrykul and Horde Kvaldir (which would have made sense under Sylvanas).

I don't see the point in adding any ugly races like ogres, broken, or arakkoa, not enough people will play them to bother. As it is, I rarely see any Kul'Tirans, especially compared to Zandalari which are everywhere.

[Nathasil]

Allied Races were one of the things BFA introduced that damaged the soul of the game. It's just one of those mistakes they will never be able to go back on. Cheap cash-grabs to drive players into the shop for race-changes are the opposite of what the game needed: More and better racial-identity to rescue what little "world" there was still left in it. Now we have twice as many "races" to pick from that stand for absolutely jack-shit nothing. Great.

[DaHomieG]

The Allied Races are fine HOWEVER Lightforged and Highmountain could've been customization options implemented alongside the rest in Shadowlands.

[Resident Rump]

It seems some customizations would have been better as a new AR. Like Wildhammers for instance.

[th3478t9gr89h2r89]

Most of the AR could have been customization options instead. I mean in shadowlands dwarves get wildhammer as an option, but at the same time dark irons are their own seperate race. The inconsistency bothers me somewhat. I would have done it similair to how heritage armor was done. You play the race, you reach certain reps and then you do some quest lines. Bam now you got dark iron options unlocked on all your dwarf characters.

Then you have vulperas wich are an actuall different race. They are done alright I suppose. There just need to be counterparts for both factions.

[Morae]

Allied race was a good choice. This opens possiblity for more than just customization. I'm always looking for highest pontential even, if it comes at cost of invidual desires. Why would you settle with a race customization, which is basically only partial recolors or possibly new hairs, beards, yet still the same race. Allied races offer more potential... entirely new races.

Yet... blizz didnt do it the right way. They opened up the potential, but they mostly have made it customization of existing races rather than giving us something new. Its just basically recolors for the most part. Lowest possible effort...

Which is why I picked the fourth option.

We could be getting so much more, but instead we get the lowest possible effort...

[Florena]

It really depends between them.

The tauren and lightforged ones, I really think could have just been customization options.

Nightborne 'might' have bene able to work as night elf customization if they were given to the alliance, but because of the faction swap with the elves, they were needed regardless of whether they 'could' work as cusotmization options. I don't think void elves could because you'd end up with things like blood elves with normal skin tones but also voidy tentacle hair etc and that would be weird.

Dark irons 'could' have if not for the fiery theme I think. It'd be odd to have a normal dwarrf skin tone with a fiery beard and eyes.

Mag'har I think could have just been customization options honest and even their racials feel uninspired.

Kul'tirans 'could' have been done as human customization options but since htey went with the bigger body build, they wouldn't.

Zandalari feel different enough from darkspear to me to justify it.

Vulpera are an entirely different species. Mechagnomes I haven't lookd at their options in depth enough to really have a feel for if they could have worked as normal gnome customiztaion.

[Pakheth]

Allied races are fine when done right (Zandalari, Kul Tiran, Dark Iron)

But not worth the effort when they look like a skin option as the Highmountain Tauren or the Mechagnomes

This pretty much.

Some of the new races definitely should be new races: Zandalari, Vulpera, Void Elves, Nightborne, Dark Iron, Kul Titan.

While a lot of the others would have done better as race customisation: Lightforged draenei, Highmountain tauren, Mechagnomes, Maghar.

[Khahirr]

Yet... blizz didnt do it the right way. They opened up the potential, but they mostly have made it customization of existing races rather than giving us something new. Its just basically recolors for the most part. Lowest possible effort...

Which is why I picked the fourth option.

We could be getting so much more, but instead we get the lowest possible effort...

This is my reasoning as well. Of all the allied races barely half use a unique model and/or have an recruitment story disparate enough to warrant making them an actual new race (Nightborne, Vulpera, Kul'Tirans, maybe Void Elves) instead of just customization options to existing races unlocked after a quest line. The problem with the way Allied Races have been implemented is lack of creativity, and now adding in customization options with Shadowlands makes it feel like the way most allied races have been implemented was a mistake.

[Directionalk9]

Most of the AR could have been customization options instead. I mean in shadowlands dwarves get wildhammer as an option, but at the same time dark irons are their own seperate race. The inconsistency bothers me somewhat. I would have done it similair to how heritage armor was done. You play the race, you reach certain reps and then you do some quest lines. Bam now you got dark iron options unlocked on all your dwarf characters.

Then you have vulperas wich are an actuall different race. They are done alright I suppose. There just need to be counterparts for both factions.

Hmm, this I find most interesting.

[Klingers]

My main beef is that the reputation gates. If I came to WoW after a break Following any previous expansion, I could unlock the marquee feature right away whether it was a new race, Death Knights, Monks, Demon Hunters or anything else. You gate that feature off behind a bar I haven’t filled up yet? That removes it as a selling point for me that I can just jump in an enjoy after purchase.

[crakerjack]

I think allied races are fine and don't mind the tedious grinds to get the rep for them, but I just wish they'd have discounts/sales/promos on race changes. A decent amount of the playerbase already has one of every class at max level, so that means we have to create a new alt just to play a particular race? I don't see why blizzard doesn't reduce race changes to $10 or something for a week or 2. I'd happily race change 7 or so of my chars instantly. 7 chars at $25 a pop is just too much for me to spend, especially over something cosmetic.

[sam86]

In early cata with introduction of barber shop, we wanted customization for our already existing races, not an entire new f8cking race from scratch to 'lvl', not to mention zero new class for them, meaning since they started appearing just 2 years ago, most wow players already have whatever class they wanted to play maxed in those 14 years since wow launched
Racials are already hated and keep getting changed and nerfed all time, we didn't need more racials to f8ck pvp/pve even more
The only 'good' reskin race idea was ironically the first one : nightborne/emo elves, they gave races to other factions, now u can play as belf without leaving alliance, which backfired because it is an even bigger middle finger to high elf fans (who exist since classic btw) that u can play an extreme tiny micro-faction of emo elves instead of the far bigger better represented in-game that exist since 1994 high elves

tldr : they should been just barber shop and nothing else