Allied Races - Quantity Over Quality

Argent Dawn
1

tl;dr - too many ribs, not enough meat

Now let me start this off by saying that I don’t hate the idea of Allied Races, in fact, I think it’s a fun idea, to be able to play as certain minor races that you meet throughout Azeroth.

Since BFA hit the spot, Blizzard’s added this new thing called “Allied Races.” Now, if you don’t live in the Dalaran Crater, you know what that means. It’s a new system, where after grinding out a reputation with certain factions, you unlock a new race for your side. Seems great, right? New races! Huzzah! New abilities, new racials, new customization, holly-jolly! What could you possibly find to complain about, you hollow-headed NINNY?!

Alright, so the idea of having new races to play may seem like a fantastic prospect for many players, myself included. However, there is one big, fat problem Allied Races suffer from: Blizzard’s management of the system.

Over the course of WoW’s lifespan (up to Legion), we’ve had five races introduced via previous expansions. Blood Elves and Draenei in the Burning Crusade, Goblins and Worgen in Cataclysm and Pandaren in Mists of Pandaria.

When Blood Elves and Draenei were introduced into WoW, they were added with care, effort, work and lots of involvement with the world. Each race got two entire zones for themselves, full of quests that told you about the race you are playing, talking about their lore, who they are as a people and what they do. They added new quest givers and NPCs in older zones (Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms), where they added more flair to the questing experience. The races added became part of the world, and would regularly appear in the game from that point.

Cataclysm - Goblins and Worgen. Both races had a starting zone they leveled through. Both races had major characters who asserted themselves into the big picture (Genn and Gallywix), and again, established two new races with their own lore, ideologies, ways of life etc.

Next we got the Pandaren. While Pandaren have not taken as major of a role in Azeroth since their expansion ended, they were still introduced with flair, with gusto, with an entire continent to tell you about them! Even with an entire continent, they still had a side-plot for new Pandaren players, so they would not just be planted into the world without any setup!

Come Legion. Blizzard brings in Allied Races, the Highmountain, the Nightborne, the Lightforged Draenei and the Void Elves. Highmountain and Nightborne were introduced well enough. They had their zones, we aid them in their troubles, and they end up joining our side. Then we look at the Lightforged Draenei and the Void Elves and, hoo boy, this is where my issues start.

Void Elves and Lightforged seem tacked onto the billboard of races for no reason. They have no setup, they have no lore prior to their release, and they are barely do anything important.

Fast forward to today, and you have 4 more Allied Races, and the expansion doesn’t even have it’s second patch released.

The Zandalari, Kul Tirans, Mag’har and Dark Iron Dwarfs are thrown into the game with minimal efforts. I can excuse Kul Tirans and the Zandalari, since the entire point of coming to their lands was to get them as allies, however, it does not excuse the lack of effort in the race’s induction into a playable race.

Look at the way every Allied Race is treated once you make a new character. You start from level 20 in your Allied Race’s respectable capitol, you are given a quest by your racial leader (and sometimes not even that ahem Mag’har), and are sent off to do the content which your race has no business doing.

Each Allied Race has a 15 minute quest chain you must complete in order to unlock them. That’s it. The entire race only gets 15 minutes to make an impression on you. After that, the only thing you are left with is a level 20 brownie, who does not contribute to anything throughout its lifespan.

Why must this be so? Your main gets a negligible quest chain, while the race you want to play gets one turn-in quest before you are set loose into the world. It should be the exact opposite! Your main, whom you’ve ground the reputation with, gets a single turn-in to unlock the race, while the new characters gets a short introductory quest chain, where they are introduced as a character, and are inducted into the world!

You may argue, that the Zandalari and the Kul Tirans have three whole zones to introduce the player to their cultures, ideologies and ways of life, and that is fair enough. The Zandalari and Kul Tirans, arguably, have been laid on the table, however, they still lack the necessary handling to make them stand out! To make them visible among the other, infinitely more fleshed out, races!

We may have gotten 8 new playable races in the last five months, but compare them to the 5 races we’ve gotten in the last 15 years, before Allied Races. Five infinitely more involved races that regularly appear in the world, races everyone’s grown passionate about, in either love of hate.

The Allied Races system can work, it can be good. But if Blizzard keeps releasing two new races every other patch, then we’ll just have a menagerie of bland, uninteresting, taped together SKINS.

Allied Races do not add more content. It’s a false mask, disguising itself as something new, when it’s really just another reason to grind through the content you’ve already finished dozens of times.

I sincerely hope that Allied Races will become more infrequent, because I would much rather have a fully fleshed out and developed race come out once every two years, than just another skin I can unlock through hours of reputation grinding.

Feel free to leave a comment telling me how I’m dumb and gay and wrong, and remember

to SMASH THAT LIKE BUTTON!

Edited to keep it in the rules - GM

19 Likes
2

Big agree. They should have stopped with Goblins and Worgen and just given each race more focus and attention. They’re adding loads of new races while gnomes, tauren and others continue to get very little.

8 Likes
3

Allied races are a waste of time, I’d prefer more customisation for our current races than new races with just as little customisation.

5 Likes
4

Not to mention the lore implications! It’s difficult to convincingly explain why the nightborne and high mountain went with their choices. It’d be better if they said the allied races were representing individuals of that race signing up for the Horde or alliance. Instead their entire races take one side, no questions asked.

1 Like
5

Fixed this post for you.

Nobody has the rights to complain more than pandaren players. Gnomes and cows are getting their content. Nothing since MoP.

And to those who say playable pandaren were a mistake. I say you are mistaken. Pandaren have arguably been given amongst the biggest cultural exploration of all races in WoW (maybe except orcs) with an entire expo All about us. To not have a race playable with that much depth added and care taken would be bizarre. I’m not gonna claim it wasn’t problematic given the both factions thing
But meh.

Its just a same its crammed in one expo that was yonks ago, and leaves us with dated lore.

2 Likes
6

A lot about the allied races rubs me up the wrong way, especially with the Nightbourne who were easily one of the best elements of Legion if not in the last few expansions. Yet their introduction as a playable race was just so lack luster when it had been so hype filled.

Their introduction quest was lame, as it just involved watching Alleria void up the sunwell by accident and little else.

Their customisation options are seriously lacking and the face problems have been talked about to death. I pre-ordered BfA primarily so I could finally play one, and as soon as I created one felt horribly disappointed.

1 Like
7

I do think the Dark Irons can be excused with the half of the clan that was loyal to Moira was already in the Alliance since Cataclysm, in MoP they even got their own scenario.

Mag’har imo should have just been the Mag’har from Outland, and make it so that they too had still been sticking to their seperate clan identities still, that’s a retcon I could’ve lived with. Since I see no feasible reason why the Bronze Dragonflight would even aid in bringing people from another timeline to the true timeline when they have no business being there.

Void elves to me feel like rather much of an posterior-pull by Blizzard to silence the people screeching for High Elves on the Alliance. Argussian Reach as their reputation made no sense to me at all.

And then Lightforged, Highmountain tauren and Nightborne.

They are all three races that received aid from both the Alliance and the Horde during the fight against the Legion, and to me it seems illogical to after that immedeatly be like ’ Okay so we just had a war against the Legion, let’s help one half of our allies kill the other half of our allies!"
Now, they can be somewhat excused due to being closer to the respective factions they joined rather than the other, but still, it felt weird to me.

Zandalari and Kul Tirans, as mentioned earlier, it was the whole point to bring them into the factions, so no commentary from me there.

Edit: I do agree though that it is better to have one fully fleshed out race with their own unique model than a skin-rehash behind a rep barrier. Especially new players wanting the races from Legion should get an option to get them through other means than doing old content.

8

Thanks, but I think it was just right as it was…

Pandaren barely scrape the top 5 races from their own expansion. Mogu > Jinyu > Mantid > Saurok > Pandaren.

That they have rights to begin with was a mistake. :dagger:

3 Likes
9

Allied races will be continued to be churned out due to them being an easy way to attract money. Races are a selling point.

:money_mouth_face:

1 Like
10

It isn’t a Blizzard expansion if they’re not introducing a new off-shoot of Tauren or Elven skin colour aesthetic. These are the rules bro?

Allied races are FoTM but in real time. I don’t mind the Zandalari, Nightborne, Kul’Tiran & Highmountain. I do dislike the scant introduction of some “Allied” races which are just jumped up recolours. (Lightforged should be a customisation option). Think like this, man; Vulpera, if they’re made playable, might arguably have more lore than Void Elves.

As somebody else said, playing some of the lesser races is pretty nihilistic - I’m sure playing Pandaren and hoping for development is self-harm.

1 Like
11

Mogu > Mantid => Saurok > Pandaren > like, everything else > :wastebasket: >>> Jinyu

1 Like
12

I like how hozen aren’t even on these lists because they are genuine garbage. Hozen and Vrykul both need to be forgotten and buried like my parents love for me.

3 Likes
13

I agree, most allied races were a hurry, and mostly not a thing demnaded for long, but quite new
Maybe this doesn’t apply to Mag’har and Dark iron as being two races which were around and perhaps, wanted

14

Levelling didn´t make sense since TBC when blood elves/draenei were able to quest in Vanilla zones. This was added upon in Wrath, when DKs, for some reason, started at 55 instead of 65 and the flow was completely destroyed in Cataclysm.

I agree that there is problem with how Allied Races interract with the world (as they make no sense there), but this simply isn´t problem of Allied Races, but rather Blizzard´s storytelling choices.

All they would have to do is to put Chromie in capitals, create few quests where she “sends you back in time” (in reality, it would be more like a vision) to see recent history of your new allies.
Instead, they forcefully try to keep the world “current” by doing stupid things like replacing Varian with Anduin on low level and changing “king Varian” to “king Wrynn” in every quest.
Because reasons.

2 Likes
17

Talking about rights is rich coming from a corpse. I’d sooner listen to a stone for tips on how to jump.

Mogu are the only race on that list that deserve to be on there alongside pandas as they have some fleshing out and something to them other than looking cool. I fail to see the obsession with Saurok myself. They’re extremely forgettable. The definition of “once a mob, always a mob”.

18

If you ask me, allied races should have been delayed until the next expansion and made into proper full races, similar to their initial base model but with more drastic changes. They should also have been given proper starting zones and more lore instead of a short recruitment quest. Going to post a few of my thoughts on how they could be improved in terms of cosmetics, because discussing story is a whole different can of beans.

Highmountain are just the same as regular Tauren but with antlers and warpaint. Given time they could have had some more unique appearances: Braided manes perhaps, faces separate from the regular Tauren model that don’t share the same eye colour.

Lightforged are just shinier Draenei but with neat beards. They could have had more wartorn faces with scarring to represent how long they’ve been fighting and how experienced they are in combat. I also would have loved an option to make those metal golden tattoos (not the transparent ones) and hoof plates optional.

Regarding the Void Elves, I’d have preferred a “two forms” situation like Alleria where they can switch between a normal form (perhaps with purple eyes in said form) and their void form, which could look much more void-touched with glowing “waves” on their skin (akin to what they have on their hair-tentacles), tattoos that pulsate in void form and the like. Perhaps the racials could have different effects depending on what form you’re in.

I don’t need to bother explaining how big a disaster the Nightborne are, we all know it. Simply put, they need the quality that was given to the NPCs in Legion. They need the unique armour and clothing the NPCs in Suramar wear. I want to RP a Nightborne, but I’m always put off by both the model and that in my opinion so few sets in the game feel fitting on a Nightborne.

I honestly don’t have any quarrels with the Dark Iron, perhaps they could have had a few unique faces but other than that I didn’t really see anything wrong with them.

The Mag’har are fine enough, but they suffer the same “identical eye colour problem” that the Highmountain have. Perhaps some more scarred faces and maybe one or two more skin tones (pale white/shattered hand and dark grey with glowing yellow eyes/dragonmaw, for example) would work well too.

As far as I’m concerned, the Zandalari are just about perfect. They’re different enough from the Darkspear, they’ve got a whole heap of different customization options and they’re generally just awesome. It’s clear Blizzard put their time into the Zandalari over the other allied races, imo.

With Kul Tirans I’m going to admit here that I’m biased as all hell, seeing that my main is a Kul Tiran that hasn’t gorged on buckets of chicken every day. Kul Tirans are okay as they are, but they either should have given all the bodyshapes or simply merged them into the default Human race. The large ones are fine, but they should have been given a regular/skinny bodysize too considering from what we see, the regular Humans are more numerous than the large Humans. Simply give the regular Humans unique faces, some scarring, new hairstyles etc.(also please give me kul tiran attire/coats blizzard)

3 Likes
19

Hail regina, your points are best <3

20

Back on Nightborne, for me they are unplayable without inky black potion on constantly so I can actually SEE the cool tatoos that are a feature of the race.

21

Agreed with most of this, but races never really added more content. You always had to start leveling them from scratch. And yeah sure they added some blood elf quests ( like…2? ) in Stranglethorn for the Horde when TBC hit, but at the end of the day they were still thrown into the Vanilla levelling experience and told to fight against threats that were canonically already dead.

Now you say that they had questlines in TBC-- but those are TBC’s questlines, they were there regardless of the race being made playable. You can’t really take TBC’s content and say ‘’ this is in here because blood elves were added ‘’. It’s more so the other way around.

If you consider TBC’s questlines to be part of the blood elf integration then I’d counter with saying the Kul Tiras questlines are the KT’s integration. The only difference is that you need to unlock the Allied races by doing quests instead of them being unlocked at launch. And I’m not sure I’m against that.

4 Likes
22

We’re missing customisation options which can be added almost effortlessly.

And WoW’s transmogrification system is so limited and outdated.

It’s really frustrating.

2 Likes