I like their cultures, aesthetic and lore. It’d be good to see a slightly more civilised Furbolg tribe that still keep their core aesthetic & features, that’s also remained mostly uncorrupted (Perhaps finding a means to become immune or fought off really well against it on their own).
As for the Tuskarr, I remember doing their quests in Wrath of the Lich King - which was a lot of fun because they had their own culture and their quests & logic just seemed to make a lot of sense (Although I remember some controversy on the old-school forums about them stealing the Wolvar pups lol). They’d be a cool flavour up in the factions I feel.
Personally I feel both should be made neutral. Have various races around Azeroth recognise the security & power held behind the two prime factions of their world and seek them out. Whether for adventure, to find advancements they could use for their people overtime, or even if they recognise it as a trial of ascension of sorts in their own way.
Blizzard could bank on the world they’ve built with the races & weave a large community with further problems, dungeons, raids - quests and plenty of rewards that come pouring in with it.
I mean, the mistake you’re making here is assuming that any Allied Race has a reason to be friendly to us at all until we recruit them or that it can’t be written that there is a group of a race who is usually hostile to us who’d be willing to be our friends. Kul’tirans, Nightborne, Mechagnomes, Mag’har (pre-time skip), and Zandalari were all hostile in some manner before events pushed them into the Alliance and Horde. While a bit strange, I could see a storyline being crafted allowing Man’ari to join a faction.
(This is just me spitballing as someone with very little knowledge of Eredar lore): Perhaps after the Legion’s downfall, numerous Eredar were trapped on Azeroth with no way to return back to Legion planets (not like it’d matter since the most important one got sacked) and many of them found themselves embittered by the Legion’s defeat and Sargeras’ failure to provide them the glorious future he promised. Perhaps some felt genuine remorse for how they had betrayed their kin for a false future (after all, some of them seem more emotionally insecure and aggressive rather than just plainly being “evil”). While both the Alliance and Horde would have reasons to distrust them and reject them outright, it’s important to note that Velen has often tried to reach out to Man’ari characters when confronting them and the Horde is literally all about being redeemed after having forged pacts with demons or forces with demonic origins (i.e. Orcs, Undead, Belves, Nightborne, etc.).
Edit: Also, the Alliance have no right to gatekeep since they allowed the Velves in.
Planned at launch, his exact words. He said that the launch is to focus on the Dracythr, which is completely understandable.
He also never mentioned anything about new core races, he specifically mentioned “Allied Races for launch”.
I’m assuming we will get Allied races down the line as the story progresses, especially with the literal complete overhaul of Tuskarrs and having even unique totems, they look definitely as a strong Allied/Core Race candidate for down the line.
Edit: not to also forget the inclusion of female models.
The Allied Races that you’ve listed are all races that have had previous interactions with the other races of the world so the familiarity is already there, or was there at one point. There is already a deep-rooted premise that while current or previous politics might have stopped them from allying with the player faction, that that situation can change and the relationship adjusts to allow that to happen.
There is no pre-existing premise of the Man’ari Eredar knowing, living among, or interacting with any of Azeroth’s inhabitants in a non-hostile manner. I get where you’re coming from, but Man’ari specifically, is too far of a reach for me. You’re better off arguing that chance with the Vrykul, or something.
I feel like this could still be done if the models were somewhat tweaked. I’m a big Kul Tiran fan. Especially of the males. But the females certainly are lacking. Their shoulders are awkwardly narrow and don’t fit the size/frame of their model. A few tweaks and i think they could fit the vrykul vibe. But BOTH the male and female Kul Tirans need more customization options. They both suffer from same face syndrome. A bigger variety of faces would be nice. As well as more facial hair and hair in general. Give them some Vrykul/Drust inspired hair and even tattoos.
I mean, none of this was here for the Lightforged Draenei. They just showed up in the last minute of Legion to help out at Argus, but there were no serious interactions between them and the people of Azeroth up to that point. Unless you want to argue that them knowing two people from there was enough to constitute an “interaction between peoples.” Their greatest tie into the Alliance is honestly just the regular Draenei who they used to live alongside. But at that rate, the Man’ari have a similar in.
I mean, couldn’t you say the same for the Velves to a degree (at least in regards to the faction they ended up joining)? They’re practically a double whammy. Not only had they been fighting for the Horde just shortly before joining the Alliance, but they also actively consort with the Void. Now, you’re allowed to have your opinions on whether the void is good or not or whether it’s better or worse than fel, but to the light-obsessed Alliance, all of these elements should make them seem rather impractical for membership.
Either way, Man’ari or not, I don’t think most people in these sorts of threads are asking for new races or AR’s to be thrown in haphazardly. I think most people would agree that giving an AR at least a single patch to prove themselves (like what happened with the lightforged) is much more preferable to just randomly dropping them into a faction (as is what happened with Velves).
Yeah, there is a suspiciously large amount of attention to detail being given to the Tuskarr. Apparently that’s how people predicted playable Vulpera in early BfA.
I know people like to complain about the human-esque races being given the most customization options, but screw it. Even if they don’t go down the vrykul path, the Kul’tirans deserve to be way more varied. A lot of people will pick Kul’tirans because they might want to play with a body type that more closely reflects their own (similar to why a lot of people play Belves). They shouldn’t be punished for choosing a body type that they feel more comfortable with–they should still have tons of customizations to make a character that they feel truly fits them.
not true of umbric and his followers(the og voids)
/shrug
high elves are blood elves now. some of my fellow alliance are salty and desired a generic lotr elf and were unable to cope with high elves joining orcs. thats what void elves fullfilled. a fanfiction. forced back in. its not an accident that they lack(and alway will) lore
Yet another “Playable Ogres and Vrykul” thread, hidden amongst some other races. And generally speaking, neither of them would be appropriate for the Alliance.
The one problem with Ogres is that we’ve only seen one gender of them, and it amuse me to think of them all as female. We don’t know what a male (ok, or female) ogre looks like.
Anyway, you left out Murlocs, and therefore your list is invalid.
I mean, I know they weren’t actively on the front lines fighting. Umbric was presumably a city-bound mage and I suppose most of his followers had to have been as well. But from an Alliance perspective, there’s really no good reason to trust Blood Elves (especially ones that held high positions of power) just because they’ve arbitrarily won the attention of Alleria. The magisters of Silvermoon in particular have proven to be among some of the most corrupt and untrustworthy members of Sin’dorei society. Would it make sense for Anduin to accept some turncoat farstriders into Stormwind? Maybe. But a high-ranking magister who dabbles in the void? That was always a bit of a hard sell.
Eh, I always feel that people are too harsh to the high elf crowd. If Blizzard really wanted to send the message that high elves all became blood elves, their best choice would’ve been not to shove high elves into the face of every Alliance player during Wotlk and then proceed to have this “endangered species” come up like cockroaches all the time. I feel like TBC contained an appropriately small number of high elves to send this statement.
I think the biggest problem with the Alliance is that their story primarily focuses on Humans and high elves (and occasionally night elves). It essentially means that one of the most important races to the modern Alliance’s identity is unplayable while it takes screen time away from races that are playable, making said playable races feel like strangers in their own story. Just send Alleria and Vareesa on their way and let the gnomes be an actual player in their faction’s dynamic for once rather than being a gag race. Or let Draenei be relevant outside of just demon fighting expansions.
This is how quotes get misconstrued over time. He said no plans at launch.
The fact Tuskarr were given racial shaman totems tells me that Tuskarr are a very big candidate for Allied Races. I can’t remember the last time they gave a NPC race something player specific like that.
-They are everywhere in Alliance areas during Wotlk.
-They are a major faction during MoP appearing twice. Once during the purge of dalaran in 5.1 and a second time on the Isle of Thunder in 5.2.
-They play a decently-sized role in Legion. In part, this is because we’re revisting the high elf-infested Dalaran again. But, also, they appear somewhat often in some of the class halls. They also compose a third of the forces standing off against Elisande with comparable numbers to the Night Elves and Blood Elves.
-In BfA, Alleria returns to the Alliance as a major character and we see high npc’s aiding the Alliance in some of the battles iirc.
At this point, they arguably get more screentime than some of the actual members of the Alliance. In all fairness, though, I guess that isn’t difficult. Even without high elves present, the writers will just write more humans into the story isntead–that void is very rarely filled with proper representation across the board.
I’m a Horde main, but I’ve seen enough to feel comfortable saying this. The humans and sometimes night elves are really the only ones that the Alliance narrative has focused on as of late. The Draenei got to have their hero moment in Legion, but got dropped after that (just like in TBC). The Dwarves and Gnomes got mild spotlight in BfA because of their allied races coming into play, but you can rest assured knowing both the core versions of these races and their allied race variants will be in the vault until Blizz decides to drag them back out. The closest thing you’ll get in the near future is the Explorer’s League in DF just because they and the Reliquery are going to presumably be the explanation for why we’re visiting the dragon isles, but I imagine focus will shift off both rather quickly once the dragon aspect hijinks ensue. As for the Worgen, their representation is limited to whenever Genn can be bothered to enter his werewolf mode. Otherwise, he likes to keep it human (even in combat sometimes, which is incredibly unfavorable for the worgen identity). In this climate, even just having Vareesa play a decently-sized role in Legion and Alleria being a consistant Alliance character from Legion to Shadowlands already puts the Helves leagues above half of the Alliance’s races in terms of representation (even if we exclude the allied races).
