The 7.3.5 PTR carries with it some pretty huge features. Right now the PTR is focused primarily on making sure level scaling works - while the system is relatively well-known at this point thanks to the Broken Isles, this is a pretty massive re-working of the power level of enemies throughout most of WoW's territory, and the kind of thing that little bugs could pop up in very easily - sending a bunch of players through the strainer that is the PTR to find said bugs is a wise move.
One of the most exciting elements of Battle for Azeroth is the addition of six new playable races. And while most of us I think imagined that we'd not be seeing these guys until at least 8.0, there's a ton of data related to these guys in the patch.
Specifically, Nightborne, Lightforged Draenei, Void Elves, and Highmountain Tauren are all getting a lot of data added in the patch.
According to the Battle for Azeroth website, we'll need to go to Zandalar in order to recruit the Zandalari Trolls as an Allied Race (makes sense) and we'll need to go to Kul Tiras to recruit the Dark Iron Dwarves (less obvious.) And these are the two excluded from the list, as well as being the two races we have the least data on (like what classes they can be.)
But for the other four races, there's no such specification. That could mean they're going to be available in the 8.0 pre-patch before the expansion, but what's on the PTR suggests they could debut way earlier than that.
Specifically, what do we have?
Models: We have the actual models for the races - perhaps with only some of the customization options, but we appear to have skin colors, hair colors and styles, facial variants, and other standard customizations (again, not necessarily all of them for all four races.)
Mounts: We have models for mounts for each of the four races - generally they're variants on the races they're based on. Lightforged Draenei appear to have a color variant on the infuriatingly rare Felcrusher Elekk models. Void Elves have a void-themed Hawkstrider. Nightborne have a Manasaber with a different model than the store mount or the Arcanist's Runesaber one gets at the end of the 7.1 Suramar campaign. Highmountain do not have a Kodo, but instead have a Moose mount, similar to the Elderhorn mount Leatherworkers can get (the Highmountain Tauren Druid travel form is a color variant on this.)
Voice Emotes: This is the thing that really drives the possibility of early release home for me: we generally don't hear the voice emotes for new races (or new classes in the case of Demon Hunters) until a ways into the Beta. For these four races, we appear to have all the voice acting done (with some really raunchy /flirt emotes.)
Now the big caveat is that even with all this data in the files, Blizzard could simply have it all ready and not flip the "on" switch until 8.0. I think Blizzard really wants to have as much of this stuff ready as soon as possible so that they can get the expansion out without the year-long wait that we generally get. I imagine the departments that would work on these elements would move straight on to this as soon as they were done with the new models for Antorus, which means that they could get a head start while the encounter designers were focusing on fine-tuning the Antorus fights.
Still, there's a big advantage to letting people create their Allied Race characters early, as it will allow players to bring their new characters to Zandalar and Kul Tiras at expansion launch, getting them into the mix.
Given the level boosts and the fact that Demon Hunters were able to jump into Legion content more or less immediately, I think Blizzard wants everyone getting in the "current expansion" pool as soon as possible.
The level-scaling revamp is going to make leveling up less painful, and it's the headline feature of 7.3.5. Wouldn't it also be nice to have a reason to start new characters who could experience that content?
There's no announcement as of yet, but again, I'm convinced that if they aren't in 7.3.5, we'll still probably get these four races before 8.0.
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