One thing that's gotten a lot of coverage in the Battle for Azeroth alpha is the fact that the Vulpera, a race of fox-people who seem to primarily live in the desert of Voldun on Zandalar, apparently have about as much customization options as a playable race, with different fur colors, facial features, and such. It's gotten people to speculate that they could become an Allied race, though Blizzard for now insists that it's just part of a new method for dealing with NPC races like Naga or Vrykul to allow for broad variation.
One thing I think distinguishes them as well is that they'd technically not be an Allied race.
Much like Hero Class, Allied Race is kind of a funny thing, suggesting something broad but meaning something specific (Hero Class, for example, is ironic given that its two examples are Death Knights and Demon Hunters, making it closer to Villain Class.) Allied Races have come in a larger group than typical playable races because they're ultimately not as novel: none of the Allied Races are entirely new. When the Draenei were introduced in Burning Crusade, there was nothing even remotely like them already available. But the Lightforged don't require all that much more establishment of background or visual design than their BC precedents.
I think we can safely define Allied Race as a variation on an existing race. Clearly, they can do radical things like have them swap factions (Void Elves being the Alliance Blood Elf variant and Nightborne being the Horde Night Elf variant,) but fundamentally they're not going all the way back to the basics and building, for example, a new 3D skeleton.
The question, then, is what we might expect of entirely new races.
For example, especially after Warlords of Draenor, I've often thought that adding Arrakoa as a playable race would be really cool. I've had similar thoughts about the Vrykul, Naga, Ogres, and Broken Draenei. Only the latter of these would really make sense as an Allied Race (in BC, their models were actually based off the Tauren, though the Argus variants, which have an entirely different origin story, seem more similar to standard Draenei in posture and body structure.)
Allied Races come with some interesting new features: they start at level 20, meaning they're never in that slow, mount-less period (though the heirloom motorcycle has given anyone with a high-level alt a relatively easy way to get their new characters around.) They also have the heritage armor, which encourages you to level up at least one of each race the old fashioned way.
I suspect that the only "new character incentives" we'll get in BFA will be Allied Races - it looks as if we're getting four per faction - but in future expansions, if we see entirely new races, is it possible we'd see similar features?
The starting at level 20 feature is probably going to be just Allied Races - it's mostly there to paper over the fact that they don't really have their own starting zones, which tend to tell stories that are specific to the given race (though I'd argue that everything from Tirisfal through Hillsbrad, or even through Eastern Plaguelands is pretty Forsaken-heavy story.) An entirely new race would presumably at least get a Cataclysm/Mists-style starting zone taking them to level 12-15.
I could see Heritage Armor being a thing for standard new races as well, though I wonder what the statistics will be after a few months regarding how many people leveled all the way for this cosmetic reward.
Allied Races seem like a relatively quick and easy way to pump out new playable races, and also allows for variations that would not really be big enough to justify entirely new races. I think we're unlikely to see new races in the expansion that follows BFA, though it's also possible that Allied Races will make such an addition something that does not require a whole expansion to justify.
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