9.0 prepatch allied race

[matttrick]

Yeah and I said you and you alone. Are you that dense?

Even if that were true, which it isn't, you are stating something I wasn't even arguing against like it is relevant.

[Hitei]

You think we'll ever get "full races" again? Just curious about your thoughts on this topic.

Yes, probably.

I know people love to meme "BLIZZARD IS SO GREEDY, ALLIED RACES ARE A SCAM FOR MONEY, OH MY GOD, SO CHEAP!!!!! CUTTING COSTS!"

But the reality of the situation is that no matter how you slice it, even with an individual allied race being significantly less resource heavy than a regular race; eight (ten, with mechagnomes and Vulpera) of them are not much cheaper than two regular races. You save costs on making a dedicated starting zone, but you're doing significantly more skin textures, hairstyles, voicelines, racials, similar levels of animation/armor scaling but across multiple allied races, and so on.

I think it's a lot more likely that the driving factor for the allied race system wasn't "it's cheaper and easier" it was trying to strike a balance between the vocal part of the playerbase that was constantly asking for sub-race systems, mag'har, blood elves on the Alliance, Dark Irons, etc. and the portion of the playerbase that would get extremely vocal and complain if they had just actually added in a bunch of customization options instead of "new" stuff.

It's also a system that is a focus in BfA but will probably just act as a regular system in expansions moving forward. Think of it like Arena, or Scenarios, stuff like that. You get a bunch of them and a bunch of focus on them in the expansions that launched those features (BC/MoP), but then going forward they keep doing that when they have ideas or see they can use them, while switching focus to other systems. You'll see allied races in expansions after BfA, I'm sure. But it won't be "here's this expansion's ten allied races" it will be like "There's a new allied race being added in X.2!"

So it's pretty likely you'll also see some more traditional races with starting zones, full customization, completely unique aniamtions, etc. as main features of an expansion, alongside the occasional allied race.

Ethereal as a Pandaren like race that joins Alliance and Horde?

Probably. Could make them Alliance only if you leaned on Locus Walker, or even give them two different varieties, with the arcane Consortium version joining the Blood Elves or Goblins, and a redeemed Shadowguard joining the Void Elves.

[nysisyn]

Full races are never going to happen again. All the future race are going to be Allied race, and that include any potential race (Like Ogre or Ethereal for example.)
Old race system demande dedicated zone that server only for 10 level and are never used again.

Imo, Allied race is a better system. It give players something to work at max level, the race can still have their own zone but it's a high level and useful (Argus, Highmountain, Suramar) and they are faster to design.

[Futhark]

Ogres. Kul Tiran reskin. Get ready.

[Syegfryed]

8.3 Sanlayn and Lightbound ???

yeah, what about no?

[Nyel]

Yes, probably.

I know people love to meme "BLIZZARD IS SO GREEDY, ALLIED RACES ARE A SCAM FOR MONEY, OH MY GOD, SO CHEAP!!!!! CUTTING COSTS!"

But the reality of the situation is that no matter how you slice it, even with an individual allied race being significantly less resource heavy than a regular race; eight (ten, with mechagnomes and Vulpera) of them are not much cheaper than two regular races. You save costs on making a dedicated starting zone, but you're doing significantly more skin textures, hairstyles, voicelines, racials, similar levels of animation/armor scaling but across multiple allied races, and so on.

I think it's a lot more likely that the driving factor for the allied race system wasn't "it's cheaper and easier" it was trying to strike a balance between the vocal part of the playerbase that was constantly asking for sub-race systems, mag'har, blood elves on the Alliance, Dark Irons, etc. and the portion of the playerbase that would get extremely vocal and complain if they had just actually added in a bunch of customization options instead of "new" stuff.

It's also a system that is a focus in BfA but will probably just act as a regular system in expansions moving forward. Think of it like Arena, or Scenarios, stuff like that. You get a bunch of them and a bunch of focus on them in the expansions that launched those features (BC/MoP), but then going forward they keep doing that when they have ideas or see they can use them, while switching focus to other systems. You'll see allied races in expansions after BfA, I'm sure. But it won't be "here's this expansion's ten allied races" it will be like "There's a new allied race being added in X.2!"

So it's pretty likely you'll also see some more traditional races with starting zones, full customization, completely unique aniamtions, etc. as main features of an expansion, alongside the occasional allied race.


Probably. Could make them Alliance only if you leaned on Locus Walker, or even give them two different varieties, with the arcane Consortium version joining the Blood Elves or Goblins, and a redeemed Shadowguard joining the Void Elves.

Thanks for elaborating! Pretty much agree on most points.

[vertigo12]

Vulpera and Mechagon mechagnomes will be included in 8.3

So the it is likely that 8.3.5 might include Ankoan and Unshackled as allied races as part of BfA or 9m0 pre-purchase.