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

[Love Machine]

Unfortunately it's never going to happen. They'll come up with tens of other types of elves for alliance players to use, but they won't budge on high elves for some reason.

They will, eventually.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Well, here is a pic anyhow:

https://ibb.co/yBy963w

So that still could possibly leave the potential for a new pair of Allied Races though?

They will, eventually.

If the majority of the WoW community eventually agreed on something, like mass exodus style boycott of the game until they received playable High Elves, then sure... eventually.


At this point the concept of playable High Elves is so polluted from the back and forth between pro and anti groups that if I were Blizzard I wouldn't touch the subject again.

[Love Machine]

If the majority of the WoW community eventually agreed on something, like mass exodus style boycott of the game until they received playable High Elves, then sure... eventually.

Why would they have to?

At this point the concept of playable High Elves is so polluted from the back and forth between pro and anti groups that if I were Blizzard I wouldn't touch the subject again.

No, it's not.

[Zentail]

Do you understand the concept of Allied Races?

Yeah, we're recruiting races that aren't currently aligned, or allied, with a faction. Hence the name. You seem to think we'll convert a Horde race into an Alliance race. If Alliance have Blood Elves, we would need to create a second spot next to Pandaren for Neutral and not use an Allied Race slot. I'm fairly certain you're the one with no concept of Allied Races. If this happens, not only does it suck for Alliance not really getting a new race, it also means Horde needs 2 more races so the roster doesn't have more race options for Alliance.

At this point the concept of playable High Elves is so polluted from the back and forth between pro and anti groups that if I were Blizzard I wouldn't touch the subject again.

They don't need to anyway. As mentioned earlier, High Elves are LITERALLY Blood Elves. They renamed themselves to Blood Elves because The Second War resulted in a slaughtering of 90% of their race and they wanted to honor their dead. Alliance will not get them because it makes no sense to take a Horde race away from them. The most that could happen is Blood Elves mysteriously become a Neutral race like the Pandaren, but there's a ton of logistical issues there. Not just from a gameplay perspective but also from a storytelling perspective.

[FlubberPuddy]

Please, for the love of god no. Gilgoblins in Nazjatar are the most annoyingly positive Barney the Dinosaur "I love my friends!" race in the game.

The Horde should have come in and purged them all with flame and enslaved the giants for our own purposes.

I see that you seem to be someone who doesn't understand what the Horde is today. Let me show an example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comment...a_kind_of_fun/

[AngerFork]

This is why they shouldn't be mentioned and why it should be kept to the megathread. This has the possibility to be a fun discussion, but the High Elf debate will consume everything.

Can't we just for once talk about Kelfin?

I'm down for talking some Kelfin. Mainly, my question would be the same question as I have with Mechagnomes coming in: would a good amount of people actually play them? Putting them in would be an easy Allied Race for Blizzard...just take the new goblin model and add appropriate fins alongside some good water racials. But my fear is that there would be a lot working against seeing them played by many players, which would be a shame for the last Allied Race slot.

Story-wise however, I'd love it. The Unshackled feels like a story that should continue well beyond what we saw in Nazjatar. They really are largely coming into their own as a faction of mixed races in the same way the Horde once did on Azeroth. I'd love to see where the Unshackled go from here, but I suspect if we don't have a playable race from their ranks that they will be largely ignored.

I'd like Ogres for the Horde already.
At least offer them and their starting area as a store item if they're afraid they'd be unpopular,and I'm sure they'd make back the money on their development costs. Instead of genders,just have a one or two headed option.

Please no, at least on the store item front. I too want Ogres and think that they would be incredibly well received, but putting them in the store would devalue them IMO, particularly given that weird "spit on store mounts" thing. They would unfortunately be pre-judged as a race before ever getting into the hands of players.

Otherwise though, I'd love to see Ogres. It amazes me that we haven't seen them in game by now, given how desired they are as a race.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Somebody mentioned it is pointless to add Kelfin now since Vulpera share the same model/animations as Goblins. I wouldn't want another Allied Race to share it right after Vulpera either.


RIP greedy, coin grabbing, H2O boys.

[Ihsan997]

I still wish there could be forest trolls for the Horde. The Revantusk tribe has been allied to the Horde since vanilla and didn’t throw a fit when the blood elves joined, so they obviously must not hold a grudge. The Darkspear were initially the only jungle troll tribe to join the Horde, the hostility of other tribes like the Gurubashi notwithstanding; thus, hostility from the Amani or other tribes doesn’t seem to affect the Revantusk’s Horde friendship. It seems like a relatively uncomplicated possibility.

There are tons of other possibilities, too...when you think about it, there are many viable races in lore who’re unused. Saberons were mentioned, and they always seemed like a species who could have had potential but were just forgotten and wasted. Ankoans/jinyu, gilblins, arakkoa...there are quite a few possibilities out there.

[Nnyco]

Possibly.

High Elves for Alliance.

You will never get high elves.

[Sorrowseer]

There’s also the friendly tribe of mogu we work with in8.3 that are a possibility.

Oh had not heard of that, looking forward to it... do they have wimmens?

[Pony Soldier]

Yeah I don't think they would just leave an empty space like that so I would put money on new allied races sometime in the future. However I think they will be the last allied races we get or at least I think it should be. We now have so many races to choose from it's ridiculous.

I'd say at some point introduce a new class and then stop it there. From then on they should focus more on making what is already in the game better. Improving on questing, dungeons, raids, classes and their specs, the zones, the character models (they can still use some improvements) and just continuing to pump out new quality content.

[Vakna]

High Elves and Mok'nothal would fit as they are both "Dying" races, though that's unlikely as Blizz devs keep insisting that they have no idea how to differentiate High Elves from Blood Elves, even though they could clearly give them Ranger themed racials and heritage armor, so instead they gave Alliance Grape-flavored Diet High Elves, we'll probably get something like Furbolgs, they could use Pandaren models, BUT that wouldn't really fit the more tribal nature of Furbolg, I feel like modified Orc models would fit better

All of those are highly unlikely... what rep are they gonna have you grind for access?

[Valhalladin]

All races have been covered except for Forsaken and Worgen.

[Mirishka]

Possibly.

High Elves for Alliance.

Even as someone who has wanted high elves since like, BC... zero chance of this happening. People need to let it go, unless they enjoy the taste of disappointment.

[Paraka]

Possibly.

High Elves for Alliance.

As amusing as this meme response is, I doubt that on the basis how not-too-long-ago Blizzard added Void Elves in this very current expansion with the intent to answer Alliance's HE request without much overlap to the existing BE. With the pattern of post-launch additions we will likely see something Shadowlands theme more likely than not. As the only ones who go against this pattern are the Mag'har.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Oh had not heard of that, looking forward to it... do they have wimmens?

[Kyphael]

Aw, that is one sweet looking female model.

[RedFenix]

I think the set up for ankoan and kelfin is pretty deliberate. Perhaps they needed more time for the female models for the ankoan, so they delayed their release until 8.3.5 instead of 8.3.

[Directionalk9]

Jinyu/Ankoan for Alliance.
Hozen, re-rigged on the Darkspear model for the Horde.

If I got my way.

Not convinced more Allied Races are coming for a while though, best reason think they might release more is to us through the drought that’s inevitably around the corner.

[Nathanyel]

Looking at AR so far, there seems to be the (admittedly loose) rule that AR are either a) recruited by a representative of a related regular race, and/or b) have a model based on that race.

The exceptions where only one of these apply are Kul Tirans and Zandalari, different model, but count as the Human/Troll AR by relation, and Vulpera, which only use the Goblin model with no relation.
There's also the Elven ARs, but they are merely a faction swap.

By that train of thought, Worgen, Forsaken and Pandaren remain as either recruiters or base models.

Worgen: one notable race in current content using that model are the Sethrak, but while they also have positive contact with the Alliance, they have slightly stronger ties to the Horde, via the Vulpera and Zandalari, as well as purely by location.
There's the idea of "Night Elf Worgen", but unless Blizzard designs a truly unique Kaldorei-themed theme, they'd be just Worgen with a different non-combat form.
Dragons are relevant again, so the "Dragonman" model seen in Cata might find a use. Wrathion is leaning towards the Alliance. Would need as much work as the Vulpera though, and we haven't seen NPCs with that model for a long time.
Long shot: Saurok, similar model as the Dragonman, might join the Alliance out of hatred for the Mogu, which had (emphasis on past tense) strong ties with the Zandalari.
All of the reptilian/draconian races would also face the issue that any sexual dimorphism would feel artifical.

Forsaken: the most obvious candidate would be Undead Elves - the Wretched already use the male Forsaken skeleton and could be used as a basis but, y'know, dead and rotten instead of mana-starved. But while they would certainly have several strong fans (less if they're more Wretched than Blood Elf DK) there's little overall appeal in another Elven race.
A direct Forsaken sub/cousin "race" would mostly be undermined by the customization additions coming in 9.0, and I'm not having many ideas here.

A Pandaren AR would likely be neutral and thus arriving without partner.
Furbolgs are an obvious and most likely related race, but are quite Alliance-leaning. There's more "savage" Furbolgs in Northrend, which also share a skeleton with the Wolvar - faction specificity after all?
Tortollan are a fan favorite since before they were officially announced for the MMO, and they use the male Pandaren skeleton - unlike most NPC races, they have several female representatives, but with the same models. As stated earlier, sexual dimorphism would be difficult to justifiy for a reptilian race, and the turtle shield only adds to that, so I could see it happen that both genders would use the same model. Possibly offer certain jewelry options per gender, but with most being shared.