Originally Posted by
HamsterFabulous
I haven't had the courage to read all 18 pages of this, though I've read most of it.
If Warlords of Draenor is indeed the new wow expansion (which is probable, as with HS still in beta, I doubt they'd announce an xpac), then the time travel setting is pretty much set in stone. We're not going back to outland to visit fragments of Draenor smaller than Outland, with little to no life on them.
In this case, Ogre for Horde is, imho, a certainty. They've been around forever, and while cases can be made in favor of Alliance Ogres, that is pushing the envelope. I think most of the community can agree that, like it or not, if Draenor is the setting and we're getting new races, Horde is getting Ogres for sure.
Now Alliance is a more complicated matter. Apparently Arrakoa make sense lorewise. I can accept that, though I don't really care for the race itself, I'll assume Blizzard won't be pulling races out of their asses. Arrakoa makes the most sense.
People hoping for High Elves are in for a disappointment. There already are 2 Elven races in the game, one for each faction. Blood Elves actually are High Elves, and the closest we're going to get to authentic High Elves. A third Elven race doesn't seem plausible at all.
People are hoping for Naga. Until shortly, people were thinking "The Dark Below" would be the new WoW expansion, and would feature Azshara, Naz'jatar and the South Seas. Now these things oppose each other. I do think we'll get to see Naz'jatar and fight Azshara at some point, be it a raid patch, or an entire expansion. Until then, I don't believe we'll see Naga as a playable race. Not until Azshara is dealt with, and Naz'jatar pacified.
So yes. Arrakoa makes the most sense to me. Unless you want to go into the whole Sporeling nonsense, which I don't buy. Players wanting cute, miniature races are numerous, but it still is pretty niche. A niche filled by Gnome and Goblin. I don't see a third Halfling race myself.
One last possibility to offset Arrakoa is the event of an entirely new race, mostly absent from lore. One never knows, it may happen. I'll just throw this out there, taken from WoWWiki, concerning Warcraft RPG: "Horde Player's Guide says that the ogres are one of the last races of Draenor's giants, implying that there has been more than one race of giants that have lived on Draenor."
We know Ogres are descended from Gronn. It is possible other races descend from Gronn. We know Gronn are descended from Earth Giants. There's a whole giant family tree to be explored here. Offshoots from Gronn, sister races to Ogres, or offshoots from Earth Giants, sister races to Gronn. According to Warcraft Magazine, "The earth giants are the ancestors of the gronn. Whatever they were, the only signs of their passing are the Temples of the Damned built during the Second War, which were all destroyed." Earth Giants can be ruled out, in any case. They are simply too ancient to have coexisted with any of the actualy sentient races, save perhaps Gronn.
In any case, it is clearly implied that other giant races have existed on Draenor, before Gul'Dan's disastrous antics, and probably many other races as well.