Why, hello there, Mr. Yak-man.

Blizzard's most recent (as of earlier today at least) Mists of Pandaria screenshot of the day was this:

Now, there are a lot of ways to interpret this. My first guess is that it looks like the Tauren are going to discover some new cousins, much like the Taunka up in Northrend. This actually got me thinking about the Tauren, and how we seem to have a fair amount of information regarding other ancient Azerothian peoples (the Trolls, the Night Elves, and to an extent the Dwarves, Humans and Gnomes by way of their pre-Curse of Flesh ancestors) the Tauren have always remained a bit of a mystery. Were they, like the Trolls, around there before the Titans showed up? (That's true about the Trolls, right?) Did they evolve naturally, or are they creations of some higher power?

The other thing this screenshot could be showing (though I think it's unlikely, given how Yak-like this guy looks) is that we're now seeing one of the updated character models we've been hoping for, and that this is, in fact, a Tauren.

Anyone who's taken a good look at the Worgen or the Goblins will realize that they look a hell of a lot better than the other playable races. It's not hard to imagine why - the vanilla races showed up in 2004, and the Draenei and Blood Elves only about two years later, whereas the Cataclysm races are only a little over a year old. But man, they look a hell of a lot better in terms of detail.

Look at Jarsus:

And then look at Ardten:

Even with these small pictures, you can tell that there's a much greater amount of detail in the Worgen model.

So it's no surprise that people are clamoring for an update to their character models. The question is: how should such an update be handled. For instance, when designing Jarsus, I picked the face that that has kind of dark circles under the eyes, mainly because that's what I look like. However, with a bit more detail, it might turn out that this was intended to be the "Old Man" face for humans. Jarsus is not supposed to be particularly old, but with greater detail, the face I picked for him may no longer seem like the right one.

I still think that we should have new, Goblin/Worgen level character models for all the older races. However, given the possibility that new models will not look the way we player like, we have a few options of how to proceed:

One would be an option that, like choosing whether or not to hear the lower, echoey death knight voices, you could simply see the old versions in your client. The other, probably more reasonable way to do it, would be to offer a one-time free re-customization. Your race, and obviously your class would remain set, and perhaps even the character's gender (though I could imagine some flexibility on this) and the character's name would all be stuck, but when 5.0.1 comes around, or whenever the new models come out, every non-Worgen, non-Goblin, and non-Pandaren (though I assume we won't have them yet if this happens pre-expansion) would get a little icon next to their character name allowing you to re-customize them if you so choose.

I for one, am looking forward to it, because while I've never apologized for playing a human, (eh, I've probably apologized once or twice - but never for playing Alliance. Woot Alliance! ...though I also play Horde) their wrists are absurdly large, so I'd be very happy to see a new model.