Should Dragonflight get a few more Allied Races, what do you think they’ll be?
I have two sets of predictions:
If we get two more that are faction-specific, I’d like to see Dragonmaw Orcs and Wildhammer Dwarves. Maybe a patch or two into the expansion, once the emergent threat catches the attention of our factions, both send their resident experts on fighting dragons to assist the war effort.
If we get a neutral race? My heart says Drakonid with a myriad of classes available, to fulfill that bulky draconic tank fantasy. But my brain says Tuskarr - they were oddly singled out in the presentation.
My prediction is they will introduce new allied races and people will whine that they don’t have time to do whatever quests to unlock them, or they don’t like to do that stuff, they just want to pvp with one of the new classes, so why bother…
Dwarves already have wildhammer customisation options. And dragonmaw would be the same for orcs. They should add that option for orcs though. It’d be neat.
My prediction is none. But my hope is ogres for horde and vrykul for alliance.
Stop with the allied races nonsense, better ask for more customizations for the already existing races. In addition, there are allied races that have not yet contributed anything to the story.
Painting a Bronzebeard does not a Wildhammer make. I would argue that Wildhammer Dwarves are both physically and culturally more different from Bronzebeards than the Dark Iron were before their addition, and the racials/mounts/heritage armour doesn’t support the Wildhammer fantasy in the slightest.
As for Dragonmaw, if they want to add glowing amber eyes, the pallid grey and purple skintones, and draconic tattoos/brands to the playable Orcs, I’d certainly accept that. But I do think they’d be infinitely better served as an Allied Race. Maybe even with a racial for their Hunters that allows the taming of dragonkin…
I think it’s the perfect reason for an Allied Race, when ostensibly the whole reason is to put a new spin on existing assets to make for races that are culturally and physically distinct enough to set them apart from the “core” races.
Mag’har could have been a brown skin choice.
Highmountain could have been an antler choice.
Dark Iron could have been a red eye choice.
Lightforged could have been a golden skin choice.
Nightbourne could have been a tattoo choice.
Void Elves could have been a tentacle toggle.
But they grew into more than that in the making. That’s the fun of the system - and not a single one of these additions (bar Vulpera) was significantly “distinct” in-game at the outset in a way that couldn’t be covered by expanding an existing option or two. But again, the beauty of the system is taking those small distinctions and just riffing on them to the extreme.
And on that note, I think that entirely new races, like Tuskarr, Ogres, Arrakoa, Ethereals and the like should be treated as “core” races, not Allied Races. They need unique models entirely and all the additional work that goes into that. Save the Allied Race concept for the easy wins.
That’s precisely why they should. Natural conflict in a natural narrative with natural progression of existing elements of the universe, granting a natural resolution to the history of Orcs and Dragons. There’s a dozen different ways that they could do this, all dramatically potent. These are the kinds of stories that I crave.