You know how it started. BfA introduced allied races, the first six announced being based on races that we already had. By the end of the expansion, Horde players were largely satisfied with the races they got, the two most divisive ones obviously being nightborne and vulpera, while Alliance players were largely unsatisfied with their allied race selection. There are several reasons for that, ranging from “These new races don’t interest me” to “I wanted real races and not reskins” to “The Horde got everything they asked for” (they didn’t, as they’re still fighting for ogres).
Coming out of the fourth year of allied race discussion and going into the fifth (I’m just as surprised as you are), it seems like compared to the far easier to placate Horde community, the Alliance community can’t come to a consensus on what they want from Blizzard, as they seem to be heavily divided on what they wanted during BfA and what they hope they get in the future.
Demand vs. Actual Popularity
One topic opened up by allied race discussion is whether the Alliance’s roster of races needs to be made more diverse. People have suggested adding more bestial or alien races (naga, arakkoa, ethereals, jinyu, sethrak, ankoan, etc.), but the Alliance’s most popular races are conventionally attractive ones (humans, night elves, draenei, void elves) and its least popular are the ones with the lowest broad appeal (pandaren, Kul Tirans, mechagnomes), so the mentioned NPC races would more than likely pull lower overall numbers than if you put them or something similar on the Horde. The people who are content with playing human paladins and night elf druids are clearly the majority.
There’s also a weird push for the Alliance getting reskins of the Horde’s non-elven races (e.g. holy orcs, holy undead, blood trolls, some variant of tauren, Steamwheedle goblins, Bilge Rat vulpera), most of which would fail commercially for similar reasons, the most likely one being the people that the Alliance attracts thinking “If I wanted to play Horde, I’d play Horde” and not being interested. You’d only really have people playing them to spite Horde players, and that’s not the kind of group you should appeal to.
New Blood vs. Old Guard
The pushback against the Alliance’s allied races has also proven that its players who want newer races are competing with the players who are more interested in older races finally becoming playable. Almost every Alliance allied race was hit with complaints that they weren’t some similar race introduced in WotLK or earlier with the exception of Dark Irons, who were requested as dwarf customization since vanilla. Void elves, in particular, were created to be a new direction for Thalassian elf lore, something new yet familiar with an identity unique from blood elves… and it backfired spectacularly because they weren’t the elves who are mainly known for being the blood elves’ foil from TBC to Legion.
If Blizzard were to only appeal to the old race crowd, the complaints about them not giving the Alliance anything new would pile up, so the only preferable outcome would be to please both sides; the new players get their weird new alien and lion man races while the veterans and pretend veterans get their ethereals and arakkoa, whichever one being more popular depending on the execution. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
Class Selection
I feel it’s also important to take into account what classes that future races have, namely paladin and druid. Very popular classes, but we have about 6 races that only have paladins, 4 that only have druids, and 2 that have both (and even then, those last two are both on the Horde), so the next Alliance race having one or both classes would go a long way to making it a smash hit. Look at the above-mentioned void elves; they’re popular despite being initially polarizing, easily the most played Alliance allied race, but that popularity has led to people campaigning for them to get paladins and/or druids since they have neither.
So, the optimal outcome is that the Alliance get at least two new races in the future, and they both have to be some combination of:
- Attractive to people who like “pretty” races like humans, draenei, Zandalari, and vulpera or typical fantasy races like elves, dwarves, undead, and worgen
- Attractive to people who like niche races like gnomes and pandaren
- Not be something widely considered unattractive like Kul Tirans and mechagnomes, or another recycled Horde race
- Not be another reskin of an existing Alliance race, or be one with seniority bias behind it like Broken or Frostborn
- Have a good variety of class options, preferably including paladin and/or druid, and maybe demon hunter if Blizzard ever budges on that class’s availability
- Have good racials
That’s my two cents. With any luck, Blizzard will be forced to listen to both factions’ pleas going forward and any future races will be far more desirable than what we got in BfA.
