I don’t want to gainsay anyone’s predictions where I’ve asked for them, and I do want to also speak into the universe:
In addition to us never seeing another race that isn’t either a) somehow transmog restricted or b) a “reskin” of an existing race’s “rig,” I think we’re done with “alliance gets this, horde gets that.”
“Effort economics” and “return on developmental investment” are like right up there with “rule of cool” now at Blizz. I’m not personally complaining, I can understand why this is the case… But I do think this is very much the case. Dracthyr and Earthen aren’t outliers, they’re an intentional trend that we are meant to get used to. I can’t see the devs ever getting “half the payoff” from the work that goes into a race ever again.
The only way I could ever see factional races happening ever again is if they do take down the final remaining faction barriers so that they aren’t cutting the return on investment in half for a new race. That requires a “player base” cultural change that the devs can potentially try to force, but the final barrier is they need to feel safe letting new players play cross factionally without harassment and…they can’t really control that without seriously upping their “social contract enforcement” game… which in an unfortunate era of “fewer humans on staff” is highly unlikely.
For the record: I never want the factions to “not exist,” but they shouldn’t mehcanically matter as much as they still do. They can be seperate cultures in the gameworld and lore, but “what faction are you playing” should never come up among friends planning a gaming session together. That is still a thing. That needs to not be a thing, IMO.
So yeah… I hate to gainsay all your wishes for “Horde Ogres” or whatever, but I think the most realistic way you can set your expectations for new races is to look for “races that could fit both factions,” based on a lot of writing I’m reading on the proverbial wall here.
Again, just my opinion.