That’s the thing, though. Customization options really don’t strike me as something that would warrant early access via expansion preorder. Moreso since said customization race being elevated to their own playable race slot would make much more marketing sense.
Can you imagine if Wildhammer customization as it currently is came out as a preorder incentive for early access? That train wreck of a thought is why I don’t really see it. Customizations in general strike me as something that comes with patches, a side dish if you will, as opposed to being the main course.
It might be different if WoW had a functioning sub-race system, but it doesn’t, and I can’t imagine Darkfallen as a customization race being given the love and care for their own identity. I view it more like options to plop onto your existing Blood/Night Elf to LARP as, likely without any changes to the voices or the lines being spoken.
Now, it could come separate from Dragonflight preorders and just be available for everyone in 9.2.5, though as I said, I have a lot of worry of any customization race’s treatment in general. They could be unique in many ways for all we know, but if you’re going to go the extra mile to do that, you may as well elevate them to playable race status for extra marketing boost. “New Darkfallen customization options!” isn’t nearly as exciting to see compared to “New Darkfallen playable race!” if it was tied to expansion preorders.
Either as a customization race or their own race, there is still the concern of if San’layn would be included and how. All we can really do is hope for the best and wait, unfortunately. 
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Character meshes are stored with all the changeable pieces as layers/elements (wow calls them GeoSets) within the file. The mesh will have one face (its shape is controlled by additive bone animations), and all the ears/jewelry/etc… as layers that are turned on and off. They don’t use any normal maps on characters though, so no real baking involved. They’re just good at hiding the seams.
Going back to my previous statement, I was wrong about needing files for each hair. Those too are stored in the main .m2 for each race/gender combo. So in theory there could be an AR with any number of new options in 2 (or 4 if night+blood elf) meshes. Would still need textures, obviously, but those could be shared for stuff like hair.
I blame lack of coffee for forgetting that lol
edit to add: To kinda sorta explain what I mean by one mesh having everything, the raw blood elf mesh currently looks like this:
Might be hard to tell due to lack of textures, but basically it has every hair and armor type on at the same time.
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I hope one day someone here can post
“It’s official” (it isn’t, we still don’t know anything else)
And it means we have playable vampyr that isn’t lackluster. One day we can dream.
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I’ll come to your party even if i don’t wind up changing anyone or anything because Ashfall is perfect. (Sledge)
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I pray they don’t fix this “glitch”
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9.2.5 just hit the dark realm (Blizzard’s test realm running on production hardware/software) and there’s usually only a week between that and a patch hitting (iirc), so based on that and barring any issues (like, uh, x-faction guilds) we might see 9.2.5 as soon as next week.
edit: oh hey i can post links now
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Welcome to trust level 3!! Try to post an image 
Or it might be that they allow twitter links by everyone…
Not sure which.
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I was kind of expecting an announcement today about 9.2.5 since there’s a release candidate. Maybe they delayed until they figure out how much work it will be to fix the guild bug? 
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I’m curious if we may see Dragonflight preorders go up along with 9.2.5 if the latter may be released fairly soon. Even if we don’t see preorders open, it doesn’t really kill any rumors of new races tied to it, though it could relate to what happens with 9.2.5 as foreshadowing. This is assuming we are getting any new playable races, of course, but if we are, I’d prefer to not have such an announcement delayed.
Feeling a bit excited to at least see things going on outside of Shadowlands at least, but will continue to hope for the best.
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I misread that and just noticed now, lol. I thought you were talking about an AR not customization. My bad, I haven’t been sleeping well so my eyes crossed or something while reading it.
I agree that customizations would not warrant early access, but an AR most definitely would. But it would have to be one for each faction and not one shared IMO. We are already getting a shared race the Dracolyth or whatever they’re called so I don’t think giving us another shared race would work. I would feel cheated in a way.
But I’ve notice on a couple different forums outside of WoW, that talk about WoW, did seem to all mention Darkfallen as a possible AR so I am taking that as REALLY good news. I don’t remember seeing that during the other AR releases.
My personal preference would be ogres and then San’layn but at this point I have little hope of Blizz giving me a core race that should’ve been in game before BE’s. I’ll take San’layn and not complain but they need to be an AR and not a customization . . . at least for me. Half a$@ing a cool AR like them would just rub me the wrong way.
To each their own.
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Why can I have red eyes but not elves?
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You can have as many elves as you want.
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I would definitely prefer this, not going to lie. After 4+ years of giving ideas and suggestions, it’s… frustrating that they most likely will put as little effort into it as possible. I hope to be proven wrong.
Maybe something will be announced soon. Who knows.
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And we have May 31 as the drop date for the patch
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taps chin
No mention of the encrypted Tirisfal stuff, unless that ties into the BE Blood Knight questline?
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Literally nothing of substance or anything we don’t already know in that announcement.
I’m dripping with excitement. Can’t you tell?
Can’t wait for the “BLOOD ELVES GOT A QUEST AND ARMOR!!!” people to try and say Blood Elves should get nothing else when it’s boring recolored armor for PALADINS ONLY (yay .-.) and an ugly green chicken. Woo. So exciting. so wow.
If it was an AR or customization it would likely be in that announcement. Safe to say we’re not getting anything.
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nods
Ah here’s the questlines, they had a different post for it.
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Already watched a playthrough of it from someone on PTR. It’s just Blizzard and bad writing once again villian-batting San’layn and bringing nothing of substance as usual. No nuance, just ‘mindless badguys’ once again. I’m tired of hoping.
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The Tirisfal stuff is unrelated to the Blood Knight quest.
Weird they wouldn’t at least mention the existence of the quest, even if it was just to tease with zero details. Unless maybe it unlocks later, with pre-orders or something?
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