On Friday I posted about having all allied races except Nightborne unlocked - over the weekend I found myself wanting to do easy content, so a while later I had the Nightborne unlocked.
This was made easier by the fact that my old main from Legion already had about 1,400 ancient mana and was on ‘A Change of Seasons’ (the quest right before ‘Lockdown’ in insurrection). (You need 1,600 ancient mana for the leyline quest, and don’t forget, in order to turn in and get quests early on in Suramar - you have to feed ancient mana to your withering friends.)
In total, I put in about 10 hours into unlocking Nightborne (which doesn’t include the time I played back in Legion - I assume this time would be much longer for a new player whose never touched Legion).
About 70 hours in total to unlock all the races after coming back in DF (maybe a bit more - also note I had several achievements from my play time back in Legion). I personally do not see how it is reasonable to expect brand new players to spend hours doing old content for these races. Especially when all the content guide (and official Blizz clarifications) are numerous and outdated. (i.e., can’t do mechagnomes on Horde anymore). A new player will already be overwhlemed.
Also, the other personal annoyance I have is that the length of the allied races recruitment quests are wildly different in time. For the nightborne you just go to the sunwell and protect it in a 3-4 stage encounter which was done in 10 mins. While with the Kul Tirans I had to run all around Kul Tirus to build a boat all while cursing myself cause I didn’t pick up all the flight paths.
One good thing I’ll note, is that for the Nightborne, I was able to do all 10 World quests on the same day - however one of them was a CoS dungeon quest and the other was a pet battle quest. I know back in the day there weren’t that many dailies in Suramar. So that’s a plus.
This post is just a word of caution if you’re about to unlock the allied races - it was both fun (at times) and pesky. Expect to invest 70+ hours of your time if you want to unlock them all.
EDIT: I’m sure there are more efficient ways to do these unlocks! And I’ve learned about many in this thread (thank you all!). This is my experience as a returning player, there is no way I’m going to know everything about WoW as a new / returning player.
I wish I could remember how the unlocking process fully went. I have Kul Tiran, Void Elves and Dark Iron unlocked but still haven’t unlocked Mechagnomes solely due to the rep grind requirement that I have no interest in doing.
All in all, they do just need to make an introductory quest line after you get a character to level 10 (since they start at 10) and streamline the process for people to play as.
A vast majority of them should’ve just been reskins. Only ZT, NB, and Vulpera were actual ARs. And I would’ve preferred them to be their own races. Also KT should’ve been an additional body type for Humans.
Unfortunately the way the game has been with Humans as a playable race and Kul Tiran, who are Humans, as a playable race does make it a little confusing. I just look at it that they are Kul Tiran Humans, but then that would mean Humans should be Stormwindian Humans. Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue as Kul Tiran does though.
AR don’t have rep requirements since Shadowlands, neither do they have dungeon or raids required either for the Alliance races that had (Dark Irons, Kul Tirans, etc…)
All that is required is doing the quests of the relevant zone of the race and/or the war campaign quests for a few.
Anytime, just keep in mind the Void Elves and Lightforged are still a little more involved as you have to unlock Argus if you don’t have it already, still doesn’t need rep or dungeons/raids though.
Do you like not know you can get all the non-quest ancient mana upgrade items in like 10-15 minutes? Or that the unlock no longer requires rep? Or that you can get mana from flying around the vineyard area for 40-60 mana/looted object.
Holy hell complaining about a process and you can’t even do it efficiently.
BFA still has pathfinder, and based on the fact they said in their post that they were upset with themselves that they had missed grabbing all flightpaths doing the Kul Tiran unlock quest they likely don’t have it, and so can’t just fly around to grab mana.
Is it still doable? certainly, but not having flying will make it take much longer, grabbing mana bits especially, which a new player or someone who didn’t play during BFA wouldn’t have pathfinder for.
I have all the allied races unlocked except mechagnomes, could not stand that island and will never go back. Plus, their gnomes . I don’t remember how long it took as it came organically while playing. I know they removed the rep requirements so that shaves off some time. Really, though, for brand new players they should just be unlocked. Maybe have to do the Embassy quest chain for a very rough intro to the race.
Call me crazy but isn’t there a 10k toy that gives all flightpaths and map locations for every expansion since patch 9.1.5 (hell we even had a BoA item in bfa)?
Why are they upset about missing flightpaths when I’ve solved this issue like 30 times on my account?
Also you don’t ever grab mana for kul tirans. That’s nightborne and legion pathfinder is unlocked for everyone.
While you don’t need direct rep grinds anymore - for nightborne (as far as I know) you still need “Uniting the Isles”, which requires friendly with each faction, to unlock the World Quests in Suramar
Still doesn’t change the actual issue of getting mana for nightborne since BFA still has pathfinder currently.
And yes, however not everyone knows of the maps, and those that do not everyone knows they have since added more other than the original kalimdor/eastern kingdom ones, I have a number of guild members I’ve told about them since they were added.
But again that doesn’t change not having flying making the process take much longer as the OP was saying.
Wait - are these the same ones that require pathfinder? I found the maps at the heirloom vendor - but couldn’t actually use them as I didn’t have pathfinder. So I didn’t bother.
(also this is something not mentioned in any guides regardless)
10-15 minutes finding the ancient mana upgrades in the open world (not tied to quests)
60 minutes tops to get all the mana needed ever in the entire questline
60 minutes tops unlocking all mana array stations in suramar
Like this topic is making genuinely interested in starting from fresh just to see where people are going wrong for why it takes them so long to unlock nightborne.
Lol at 'Holy hell complaining about a process and you can’t even do it efficiently"
Didn’t I say I was a new / returning player? Do you expect all new / returning players to be 100% efficiently and dedicate more time into research to do it ‘correctly’?
As I recall only the SL one required something like shadowlands voyager. All the rest when the patch dropped I was able to buy instantly. But then again I had loremaster, draenor/legion/bfa pathfinder for years already.
. I don’t remember how long it took as it came organically while playing. I know they removed the rep requirements so that shaves off some time. Really, though, for brand new players they should just be unlocked. Maybe have to do the Embassy quest chain for a very rough intro to the race.