This is exactly the point I was trying to get across, just took someone else to say what I meant for me.

Perhaps I am also underestimating the value of a humanoid with more beast than humanoid. I'm mainly remembering the old world Gnolls and furbolgs, but looking at them again the new furbolgs and wolvar have more potential in looks than I remembered.

One has to keep in mind that the vast majority of the WoW player base have never read any of the novel. That even applies to many lore afficionados. So if the reasonable expectation is that a new playable race is already 'established' in the WoW universe in a meaningful way, that will most likely preclude ones that have never been seen in-game.

If indeed one or two new races get introduced, I hope that they will be relatively well-balanced in their attractiveness to players, including the extent to which their lore is fleshed out. In TBC, Blood Elves were massively more popular than Draenei, to the extent that it wasn't rare for servers established with the release of TBC to have a Blood Elf population equal to or exceeding the entirety of the Alliance. Appearance certainly played a part in that, but I don't think it's too far-fetched to find some blame for the relative unpopularity of Draenei with the 'spacegoat saga'.

I've got a feeling that if goblins did indeed end up a playable race they might be rather popular. My personal bias is an unadulterated love for the little green buggers, to the extent that I might actually start playing again just to roll one, if we get a ton of Undermine lore, even better. Think of the possibilities - "Time is money, friend!" will take on an entirely new meaning when facing a goblin affliction lock. Anyway, introducing new races while maintaining faction balance will be rather difficult. I guess if the Horde got Goblins as their first 'technological' race it might make sense for the Alliance to get some kind of Forsaken analogue. Worgen could fit into that niche, but obviously it won't be everyone's cup of tea.

A neutral race is just too far fetched, it will never happen due to the BG implications and the fact Blizzard want races to be instantly identifiable by sight.

I still like Tuskarr for one: Orinoko Tuskbreaker - NPC - World of Warcraft
Goblins could be a Horde race, or at least one faction of Goblins as I doubt the whole of Undermine would join (unless they do away with neutral city hub as the main focal point for an expansion, which would be good). I can't see them ever joining Alliance though due to their similarity and rivalry with Gnomes. They would be a good Horde counterpoint for a small race.
High elves would be too simliar to Nelves/Belves I think to be considered. There also probably isn't even enough of them.
Taunka are too similar to Tauren to make a whole new race.
I don't buy naga for the model/mount issue unless its some sort of half naga merman race that broke away from Azshara/Old God before the transformation was complete.
I don't buy Satyr/Worgen as they're too evil without a complete background change. After the RAS I doubt the horde would let a faction of demons in.
Vyrkul could be an outside bet, something to do with them searching for redemption after the LK's grip loosened on them and a new faction formed.


I think a lot of races could be used if they used a Dranei/Gurloc approach of more evolved/less devolved race discovered. It really gives them a blank check to say "Heres these Furbolgs, but they shed their body mass as they lived in the climate south seas after the sundering for 10,000 years and now look like hairy bearmen rather than manbears." I'm half expecing the same for some faction of Highborn that escaped the more drastic effects of Azshara's pact with the Old God and now are still elf like (in a grotesque way) but are humanoid with legs. Kind of like the swamp thing.

Actually, I can't see much good about it except increasing the stupid hatred between the factions, which swaps over from the NPCs to the players. If you see an opposite player in a neutral city, you maybe can start to think of him as a player, an actual RL being (granted, many have problems with that even for players of their own faction, some think of other players as the mercenaries of Guild Wars, NPCs to fill your group and get you 'fat loot') instead of just some hostile NPC that you have to attack if you meet him elsewhere, lest he attacks you first because he, on the other hand, thinks you're just some evil enemy unit, too.
Lorewise, I think many members of the neutral factions, even if stemming from the player races (Cenarion Circle, Argent Dawn/Crusade) understand that Horde and Alliance have to overcome their hatred, which is mostly based on conflicts initiated by outside powers (Orcs<>Humans, NElves<>BElves) or even just plain prejudice.
In my opinion, Varian and Garrosh show pretty well how, yes, childish these tiffs can be, and the Broken Front makes clear that some people just seek fights for the sake of fighting, no matter if it hinders the greater goal (here: gaining ground against the Scourge)
Neutral cities/camps have been in the game since Classic's endgame already, I've often said that levelling is like growing up, you do silly things that don't actually do anything good (PvP quests, quests for beings that later turn out to be evil) but in the actual endgame content, you put at least the PvP part aside to join forces against the actual enemies. It's kinda sad the Might of Kalimdor never found a successor.

Neutral cities instead of two faction-aligned cities aren't about saving development time, that may be a nice side effect, but the main goal is to make people accept other player units are actual people, too, in my opinion.

That's why I think a neutral city works against that. If they're trying to encourage a WAR then its counter-productive to have us getting our hair cut in the same barber shop or using the same bank, even if there are small horde/ally districts.

As for Gyrnn and Warosh (get it? they're the same) yer it is annoying. One of them acting out might have been fine but two just looks like a kids argument. One of them, probably Wyrnn, should have been a more subtle, dark plotter style. Engineering situations that embarrass Thrall/Garosh and make the Alliance look like the good guys, that sort of thing.

But the complaints are so widespread now I expect during or after 3.2 the status quo will be changed as it is clear the playerbase isn't happy with the way the conflict is progressing. The most obvious thing would be for Wyrnn to kill Garosh to bait Thrall into aggression. I suppose Garosh could kill Wyrnn but then SW would be back to a boyking and as much as I dislike Wyrnn, he is better than nothing. Killing Garosh, the Horde still have Thrall.

Weren't we supposed to get a new teenage character model for Anduin Wrynn? Losing Varian for good and pushing Anduin into true leadership with no Prestor regency could be great storytelling.

This is very possible. There is just so much we don't know about the Naga that a derived group with legs would be an easy fit. So far we have only seen the standard females and males, one noble female with Lady Vashj and one sporting mutation enhancements, which would be Naj'entus. We are very likely going to be seeing more of the mutated ones if we do have an oceanic based expansion.

What we have not seen are Naga who are not part of their military, such as it is. The rank and file commoners could have an entirely different body plan for all we know. With the Naga being Highborne originally, I would think any members who would be part of a peasant class would not be treated well at all. That could be another way to get them in game as playable. It also would provide a class war theme which would mirror the original War of the Ancients as history repeats itself.

It's not like humanoid snakemen are that odd a concept. There are plenty of examples in mythology and pop culture of such beings, and if Blizzard went this direction, they would not have to be even that elf-like, a proper snake head would work. There are enough examples of head ornamentation, from hoods to scales that are like horns, on normal snakes to provide various styling options too.

The only issue I can see would be complaints that we are getting Naga who are not Naga. If the derived race was made cool enough, that would easily be forgotten I think.

While there is a lot of great discussion going on about there never being a neutral faction, I think that the new art from the Argent Coliseum leads me to some other hypotheses. I'm assuming that some of the art is placeholder for the time being, but it looks to me that a lot (if not all) of the drops from the coliseum are faction specific in both art and name, with stats being equal.

This makes me think that the developers are toying with the idea of having gear artwork that points out the faction of the player rather than just race. If horde players can only wear horde-esque gear, it becomes very apparent very quickly who is who. Why wouldn't this allow for a neutral race to exist that has to choose a side at some point? Or even an option to default from one faction to the other as a player? More than anything, I am just trying to point out that until now, players of certain classes all have the same looking gear, but now the factions will be the determining factor in gear artwork.

Two arguments against:
1) They're already getting backlash. Warriors/DK/Paladins don't want to look the same. Hunters/Shaman, Druids/Rogues, and Warlock/Mage/Priest feel the same. Classes want to feel distinct - a lot of feeling distinct is looking distinct.

2) Art asset time, databse size, and names. Every item needs two names, two art assets, and two entries in a database. Compare modeling a new race (and animations) once, vs doing every single piece of new gear twice.

Faction-based gear was an interesting idea and a test. I believe it's failed before it's gone live and don't expect to see it continued (though they will carry through in 3.2, they're not wasting the art that's done).

I can actually understand the need to somehow increase inter faction tensions, even though I've always been of the opinion that the current way to achieve this is childish at best, and plain mouth breathing retarded at worst. And yet, even if they decide to escalate the tensions to all out war of extermination, you have to keep in mind that there are other factions out there, not just the two playable ones.

Logically, it would make sense that these factions request the aid of the seasoned veterans of both factions for their cause, somehow forcing the two to coexist. And while these factions (Argent Crusade, Steamwheedle, Ebon Blade, Kirin Tor, you name it) are mostly too weak to last too long should either faction attack them, they could still cause massive short term damage to whoever attacked them. So, neither the Alliance, nor the Horde are too keen on wiping out these lesser factions that somehow hinder their war efforts by diverting able bodied soldiers to whatever other cause, because they'd find themselves vulnerable to a surprise attack from their sworn enemies, and because they still get the benefit of not having to pay wages or worry about training their heroes.

Neutral towns will probably still be around, if only to differentiate the wilderness of your own realm from battlegrounds, where members of the opposing faction are just random names you might never see again.

Which leads to a huge problem of art development time. Blizzard already re-uses models like crazy (all non-tier gear is tier gear recolored etc.). It's pretty clear they don't have the desire to put that much budget and time into gear models.


P.S. Blood elf...brutal? Having a hard time telling the males from the females in a race does not imply 'Brutal'.