Like I said, the idea predated Legion.
But there’s other ways it can manifest, outside of just giving them an awesome racial mount. Instantly mounting that racial mount, akin to Druids, would also be a nice option.
And then Night Elves would want instant mounting of hippogryphs, Orcs/Trolls would want instant mounting of wyverns, Gnomes and Mechagnomes would want instant mounting of anything mechanical etc. And doing so would devalue every other mount including the ones they’re trying to sell via the store. Never going to happen.
… it’s a thematic racial perk.
Something that Druids already have, no less, with no reaction in this regard.
Hardly the doom and gloom you’re preaching.
And those other races with lore ties to their own mounts would see it the same way.
Druid is a class, not a race. Their class utility is balanced against others, like a mage’s ability to teleport around the world or a warlock’s ability to summon.
… Dark Iron can teleport around, you can glide, worgen can sprint, etc. This isn’t anything revolutionary.
You weren’t talking about gliding though, you were talking about a druid’s class ability to shapeshift as an “instant mount.” I pointed out that this class utility is balanced against others. There are no racials that allow instant mounting in the game currently.
I’m not even sure what you’re critiquing anymore.
Where, exactly, have the goalposts been moved to?
Classes have utility. Races have utility. There is a lot of overlap between the two. Why would this, of all things, be the most egregious offense?
You’re asking for an allied race to be created and then given a racial that doesn’t exist anywhere else, all because the cosmetic options they added to the game feel like “dress-up” in your eyes. If they do it, fine, but I think they have much bigger fish to fry even just on the Allied Race front.
- It does exist elsewhere, as both Druids and Monks can both instantly “mount” while airbourne.
- I’m not married to the idea, nor is the race. It sprung up off the top of my head while discussing this with you.
- Most races, particularly allied races, have functionality available to them that isn’t available to all races. That’s kind of the point of racial abilities.
- These are precisely the types of races that best fit the Allied Race system - most other suggestions are better served as core races.
- Class utility balanced against other class abilities, not a racial.
- Sure, but instant mounting (gryphons or otherwise) is not and never has been one of them.
- See above.
- Whereas I’d rather see things like Sethrakk or Mogu prioritized first, but we’ll see.
- The ability to teleport is shared between races and classes (unprecedented before Dark Iron). Multiple mobility options are shared between races and classes (unprecedented before Worgen and Goblins). Are those “balanced against other class abilities”? Is there any balance at all there? Hardly a concern. Again, you could elaborate further here. You seem to think that your point is readily evident, but I’m still not sure about precisely what you’re trying to get at.
- See above. Precedent is not prerequisite.
- See above.
- And those are solid suggestions for core races. By and large, Allied Races use existing assets with a new coat of paint, some new racials to play with, and a new mount. Entirely new races, such as those, require much more time and attention, don’t you think? Sethrakk and Mogu deserve more care and effort than, say, giving Orcs brown skin or giving Draenei some snazzy tats.
ZT and Kul Tirans have wholly new models/rigs, so claiming that Sethrakk and Mogu (the latter of which have an existing rig, Draenei) are best as core races is unsupported. Furthermore, allied races have clearly proven to be successful in terms of dev time since they have been added multiple times across two recent expansions, whereas we haven’t had a new core race in 6 years. Core races don’t incentivize people to reroll from scratch the way ARs do, which is the most logical way that they recoup their development costs.
As for unprecedented abilities, you’re right that instant mounting could be a theoretical first for an AR, but I don’t think it is likely. Other races with deep historical/lore ties to their mounts, like the other examples I listed upthread, don’t have such an ability. Furthermore it would make gryphons a clear best gameplay choice for your race - putting aside that no racial mount has such a mechanical advantage, it would also hurt them down the line as none of the players maining your race would have any incentive to go after in-game or paid mounts of any other stripe.
TL;DR you should come up with some other racial, the instant mount thing is extremely unlikely even if they were to make Wildhammers.
Why not?
No other race shares the same type of bond with their mounts that Wildhammer do with their gryphons. But again, like I said, it was just an idea that was spitballed during this discussion. No idea why you’re coming at it with this level of intensity. 
I’ll make it more expansive, then - all flying mounts are instantly mounted by the Wildhammer Dwarves. 
The racial transmog is the main reason - core races can get that simply by hitting Exalted with their race’s faction (can be done on even a character of another race and then racechanged, or done via tabard + dungeons), whereas ARs must be leveled from 1-50 to achieve this. I anticipate that any new races will follow this model in order to be more cost-effective.
No intensity, just deductive reasoning.
Good luck with that 
But a new core race would necessitate the leveling of that race, as well?
And it’s not deductive reasoning. It’s ruling by precedent. Deductive reasoning would have revealed that very few defining racials in modern WoW follow precedents.
You can get all those rewards from a core race simply by race-changing. Only ARs require the 1-50 progression.
The deduction part was that we’re unlikely to get new core races when the allied race model has been more successful for them. It gives experienced players a stronger reason to reroll from scratch, which helps the lower-level zones and dungeons feel populated for new and returning players.
Level a new character now and queue for dungeons - count how many of them include at least two characters leveling allied races. In some cases you will see entire dungeons with nothing but allied races opposite you.
I tend to see a pretty even split - just need to get Kul Tiran up there for the heritage armour now.
I also levelled a Goblin, Tauren and Worgen. Not exclusively for the armour, but that was a factor.
And since when is “level from scratch” the measure of success for adding new races? I was under the impression they exist to allow players different ways to aesthetically express themselves with a few bells and whistles thrown in, regardless of their avenue of accessing that content.
The proof is in the pudding; Since launch, we’ve gotten just 3 new core races across a span of 7 years, with the last of these being added in 2014. For Allied Races meanwhile, we’ve gotten 10 in the last 2 years.
Both the unlock requirements (even softened as they currently are compared to originally) as well as the incentive to level them from scratch that core races don’t possess, result in much greater playtime overall than a new core race would. And we have seen that playtime matters, as that was their reasoning for not adding new dances to the game - a comparable burden in terms of animation and modeling.
… because the majority of the Allied Races were more or less palette swaps. Kul Tiran was a bit more involved, and you have the odd unique animation, but by and large, they’re using pre-existing assets. Kul Tiran are the exception, not the rule.
This is a complete non sequitur.
Just a little whacked out.
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