See, I love them. Partially because there is nothing about these specific earthen. What makes them tick? What will they act like? As a role player, this is exciting. I can do whatever I want with the race and not be wrong.
I’m a Horde player through-and-through who has to wear this dwarfsuit because Stoneform has, at this point, become the most powerful racial in the game’s history and I was the solo tank on Mythic Sark, where it means the difference between a kill and a wipe.
And balancing racials seems to mysteriously not even be on Blizzard’s radar anymore. When was the last time a racial was changed?
Don’t get me wrong - I love Earthen, too, conceptually. They really hearken back to Tolkien Dwarf lore on their origins. I’ve liked them more than the core Dwarves since I first saw one in Stonetalon during classic. And I’ll enjoy them well enough - more than most of the existing offerings.
But they aren’t Drakonid. Nor Dragonmaw Orcs. Nor Wildhammer Dwarves. Nor Ogres. They aren’t those races that I already love - that I would race change my main to. They’re just another head in the alt army, at best.
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Oh, that is a nice thought.
The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone
When Durin woke and walked alone.
He named the nameless hills and dells;
He drank from yet untasted wells;
He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,
And saw a crown of stars appear,
As gems upon a silver thread,
Above the shadows of his head
A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power upon the door
The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone forever fair and bright.
There hammer on the anvil smote,
There chisel clove, and graver wrote;
There forged was blade, and bound was hilt;
The delver mined, the mason built.
There beryl, pearl, and opal pale,
And metal wrought like fishes’ mail,
Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,
And shining spears were laid in hoard.
Unwearied then were Durin’s folk;
Beneath the mountains music woke:
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,
And at the gates the trumpets rang.
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I don’t think you’re wrong. Personally, I’m just not into it. It’s cool we get Dwarves as Horde now, that’s great. They just remind me of rockier versions of Dark Iron Dwarves. After years of mega threads on multiple platforms and the reception from some other Allied Races, you’d think they have a pulse on some of the more requested races.
I think they’d have gone over much better as a barbershop enhancement via rep grind/story quest chain in The War Within. You know, stuff like the Night Warrior/Dark Ranger and potentially Druids of the Flame skin/tattoos.
I have no interest in them as an Allied Race. To be fair here, just because I would’ve preferred Drakonids over Drac’thyr and main universe Mag’har over alternate universe Mag’har doesn’t mean people share the same enthusiasm. I don’t hate Drac’thyr, I have no desire to play them or Evoker. (Neither of them can fly, so I’m not sure why Blizzard didn’t slot the the Drakonids as an allied race, during Dragonflight) 
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I think the size issues with Drakonids mean they’re just never going to happen.
Tauren have enough problems, already.
Same reason I don’t think playable Ogres will ever happen.
It’s kind of hard to view a race as “new” while it has the exact same silhouette as previous races. Earthen are not new, they’re a copy/paste dwarf with crystals glued on.
Put on a set of armor and you’d never know the difference.
Personally I’d prefer a new race. New model, new silhouette, new animations, something that’s actually new.
We also cannot discount the fact that Blizz most likely chose earthen because they didn’t have to spend any time fitting armor/weapons onto the models, or developing new animations. Just copy dwarves and done.
Then they gave the women beards just so the race would have something interesting about them.
They’re bland and uninspired.
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I wish there had been a similar outcry from Alliance players when they got a copy-paste of Blood Elves.
(The obvious difference, of course, being that so many Alliance players had DEMANDED a copy-paste of Blood Elves for over a decade.)
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Aye, there would be doorway issues/some elevator problems. The one from Throne of the Tides comes to mind, immediately.
There was from some of us, but we were ignored.
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I dont think anyone is annoyed that horde gets access to dwarves now.
Im happy for horde players who like them.
When the alliance got void elves, it was something new to the alliance so there was no problem.
The problem with reuse here is that its the third time on the same faction.
Like, if earthen was horde only and alliance got something different, that would be cool too.
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Because we haven’t been given the chance to get into it.
It’s just a huge gamble to add a race to the playable roster at the same time as introducing them. There have been a myriad of races that have been added to the game - some are embraced by the playerbase, others are virtually forgotten as soon as the next patch rolls around. The whole game is a testing ground for concepts to see what players get attached to.
Let’s say Blizzard tossed in one of those long-requested races in lieu of Earthen. Two things can happen with Earthen:
- Players might get really attached to Earthen, so they wind up joining the roster - maybe even before the expansion is over; or
- Players don’t care for them at all, and Blizzard is able to pivot to something else - maybe those spider people or the Arathi.
Either way, Blizzard gets the pop they were hoping for when announcing a major feature.
Give them the Tauren hitbox and make them just nominally taller aesthetically if they want to. Drakonid height is incredibly variable. No real issue there.
Playable Ogres were going to happen with Cataclysm, though. It didn’t happen not due to any size or technical issue, but because they couldn’t figure out how to make the females hot. And I would hope that they’ve moved beyond that sexist hurdle by now.
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Same. As a (currently) primarily ally player, 0 issues. Would have 0 issues with any of the races going horde, too. As i’ve mentioned before, I’ve killed so many humans that it wouldn’t matter. Heck, could make 'em Alteraci, with their lore being back-stabby folks during the second war.
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I’m still waiting for alliance to get a cute adorable bunny race. 
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I’ll be honest with you though, Bytalth.
I don’t think an expansion of their stories are going to change my mind. When they flashed across my screen watching Blizzcon, the first thing I thought of were asking more questions now about the lore. They’ve been underground this entire time, okay. So they were immune to the curse of flesh also? I thought the Ulduar Earthen were immune because of the forge of wills. They were basically landlocked in the Storm Peaks. These Dwarves were just underground and they were the Titan creations, so obviously, N’Zoth would’ve had to know about them.
At first glance, they just seem like they needed to put an on the box feature to sell the expansion and this was the fastest thing they could mock up.
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Thank you (and other three who were silly enough to like your post) for proving you didn’t read past that sentence. 
That was a great laugh for today, thanks!
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I can’t wait to get the bunny ears for my paladin! I use the hearthstone from that holiday event
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As a dwarf player, I get it. The incredible awesomeness of our race transcends all others in a way that others cannot fully conceive. It is just too much for the average player.
We needed another furry or scale race to balance the pinnacle of perfection that earthen are set out to be.
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FFXIV exists for them. 