Allied Races
Ion: Now let’s start talking a little bit about features. So… Allied Races. As we have heard, the allegiance of battle here has been drawn. It is hard to remain neutral in Azeroth going forward. Alliance and Horde are looking for all the help they can get; and part of that means is seeking out potential allies. Turning to friends that we have been through hardship together, and seeing if they would join our cause; and you as a champion of the Alliance or champion of the Horde, are going to be one of those doing that.
You will reach out to these allies, and see what other problems they have, see if they would join the Alliance, see if they would join the Horde, playing through custom quest content that tells the story of how Thalyssra and the Nightborne come to join the Horde; or how Alleria and the elite squad of elves that she has trained to harness the power of the Void come to make their home in the Alliance — hardening the rift between her and her sister.
You will play through those quests, and once you do, you will unlock the ability to make that allied race as a new character across your account. So only traditional races where you just go buy the expansion, you can make them right away, this is something that has much more story context to it. This is something that will be earned. Needs to tell the story to explain why these races came into the faction, and it is up to you to make it happen.
Now allied races, like regular races, have new racials, that are appropriately flavoredful for where they are coming from. Varied customization as makes sense for some of the races: like the Lightforged draenei have various holy markings across their body that you can customize, lots of facial hair options of course for the Dark Iron dwarves, with their ember-flecked beards from their time by the forge. But once difference is that Allied Races actually begin at level 20.
They are a bit more advanced, but we know that if you are playing one, you are a bit more advanced as a player. You are already more established in World of Warcraft. So you will start off venturing to Stormwind, venturing to Orgrimmar, as a fledgling member of your race, looking to aid your new allies, you will adventure throughout the world, do what you can on their behalf, and eventually make your way to join the fronts of Battle at max Level.
Now, you can race-change if you want, once you have unlocked them. You can boost an allied race. We don’t want to limit those options. if you have played, let’s say, a dwarven paladin for years, but in your heart of hearts you have always wished you could be a Dark Iron Dwarven paladin, we don’t want to make you make a new character, or abandon your main to make that happen. But at the same time we also want to make sure it doesn’t feel like that’s the right, or only, or efficient way to do this.
So if you level an Allied Race from 20 all the way to max, you will unlock a set of Heritage Armor. A cosmetic appearance that reflects the essence of what it means to be a Nightborne elf. Or a Dark Iron dwarf. That you can show off to everyone who sees you, understands what you have done.
So to sum up here, we have 6 Allied Races coming to Battle for Azeroth, but this is a foundation upon where we can continue to build in the future. Azeroth is full of countless potential allies; and we can use all the help we can get. So we are very excited about this as a starting point for something greater to come.
And so, for Horde, you will be turning to the Nightborne, and the Highmountain (whom with you fought and whom you aided in the Broken Isles), as well as — if you are successful in your journey into Zandalar — the Zandalari trolls.
Meanwhile, the Alliance finds fast new allies among the forces of Argus. The Lightforged Draenei, the Void Elves (under Alleria’s tutelage), and you will work with Moira to rekindle and bring the Dark Iron Dwarves into the Alliance formally.
So I know you caught a quick glimpse of these allied races during the Feature reveal, but let’s take a much closer look. Check out this video.
Pretty cool. One nice thing about the cosmetic armor sets that you saw in all those character sets in that video is: as cosmetic transmog appearances… these are universal. So if you, for example, play a dwarven caster and you always wished you could have a more battle-mage type of look, doesn’t matter if you wear cloth, you can still transmog it to look like that dark runic mail and show that off.
NEXT: LEVELING IMPROVEMENTS
| WORLD OF WARCRAFT: BATTLE FOR AZEROTH PANEL TRANSCRIPT | |||
| 1. Battle for Azeroth | 2. Zones of Kul'Tiras | 3. Zones of Zandalar | 4. Zone Flow |
| 5. Allied Races | 6. Leveling Improvements | 7. Heart of Azeroth | 8. Island Expeditions |
| 9. Warfronts | 10. Battlegrounds & Arenas | 11. World PvP | 12. Dungeons & Raids |
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