will they be just as important as the alliance group?
what makes them special in their culture?
is the leader gonna be cool?
do they have their own city hub?
Can we tell them apart from the rest via colors?
will they be dropped once the expansion is over similar to DHs, Pandaren and Dracthyr?
These are the things I ask myself at the new race in the great hope we had rather be getting Amani and Ogres instead who have a bigger purpose beyond a single expansion.
In all likelihood, it’ll be similar to the Dracthyr split. The Alliance Weyrn (Obsidian Warders) and the Horde Weyrn (Dark Talons.) There’s some background suggesting that the Horde Weyrn is the more vicious and aggressive of the two, but in practice there’s no actual difference between them. It’s a totally arbitrary distinction. They don’t behave differently, don’t have any conflict of opinion and don’t even have consistently different colors.
They are essentially a post-factions race and I imagine the playable Earthen will be as well.
Remember when diverse races were released with actual arguable good reasons between factions and enough story to support them instead of just carbon copy the same race for both sides?
In my entirely unbiased opinion, any dwarf is automatically cool until proven otherwise.
Perrrrrsonally, I hope we don’t have a repeat of the calm, cool and collected one goes Alliance and the hotheaded person-of-action goes Horde because we’ve done that at least twice.
Probably at least as many as join the Alliance.
Probably?
I’m a little worried that what makes them special will, as mentioned, be that this is the part of the faction that favors action to the point of rashness. Again. But it is a trend.
Of course their leader will be cool. Dwarves.
I hope so. I suspect a neutral city with a Horde segment and an Alliance segment based on previous trends. Also, if there’s not a mole machine point, I’m going to riot. It’s bad enough that they haven’t updated my racial since BFA but if I can’t go visit dwarves underground, I shall be cross.
Probably. It’s probably going to be red crystals and blue crystals for the NPCs with all the customizations available to players.
Also probably. Maybe we’ll get lucky and it will be another Dark Iron and Nightborne situation where they get to show up fairly frequently. Instead of mechagnomes and Highmountain where… Well, yeah.
This all comes with the caveat that I am basing these answers off of no new data and purely off of vibes.
I mean, all races have had their reasons. Dracthyr literally were just refugees, some joined the Horde, some joined the Alliance because they had no home.
For the Pandaren, after the whole situation in the woods and meeting the factions they wanted to go help the world, adventure and so on.
Oh, they do show up on occasion – the mechagnome rockclimbers are there as well as Mayla. And why we couldn’t chat to Mayla about Ebyssian’s promo… Anyway.
My main point is that they’re very underutilized.
Thalyssra opened a portal. Skyhorn guy makes an escort flight to an airship. The Mag’har hogged a boat. That’s it. Umbric however basically carried the alliance war campaign together with Jaina. That is not comparable.
That is always something I think about, at least have a set of royal guards with them! Mayla and Baine fighting alone in Dragonflight for instance, where are their personal troops?
Point aside, lol. I do agree with you; they were shown quite a bit in BfA.
I entirely agree that they dropped the ball in regards to Mayla and Ebonhorn. That should’ve been an important discussion at some point in this expansion, especially since she has been involved and on the Island.
But I would argue that for the most part, the races have been quite frequently used. Some more than others of course, it will never be even.
Erevien, Thalyssra has essentially become one of the main leaders of the Horde at this point. If a Horde leader shows up, it is most likely Thrall, Thalyssra, Baine or Lor’themar.
That being said, in BfA I would be glad to argue that they showcased each race’s contribution to the factions quite well. They may not have been the spotlight of stories, but we saw them actively contributing in various ways. Mayla of course appeared throughout the story when the leadership meetings occured, but as mentioned Lasan has been the main representative for the Highmountain.
He helped rescue Talanji, participated in Zandalar’s defense. Is shown mingling with the Centaur in DF. I wouldn’t undersell his presence just because it was not the main story. Same with the other races; they may not have been central to the story, but we saw them all.
It seems you didn’t play the alliance side of things in Bfa at all lol. Like Umbric is the most diehard alliance patriot you can ever met to the point he sends Horde ambassadors to the void just to impress Halford.
