My love affair with World of Warcraft is a classic on again/off again romance. I’ve been playing since Vanilla, but only in spurts. I’ll sign up for a few months to a year, grow bored, and cancel my subscription, only to come back a few years later to check out the new content. I’m currently in the middle of my latest revival, with my eyes on buying the newest expansion, Warlords of Draenor, when it goes down in price.

But as much as I love World of Warcraft, I’m kind of the odd orc out. I don’t run raids or dungeons, I’m not in any guilds, and I avoid Player vs. Player combat like the corrupted blood plague. I play WoW for the story and the role-playing, and one of my favorite aspects of every new expansion are the new playable races added to the game. It means more new characters!

Look at’em all!

Of course, not every new expansion introduces new races. Warlords of Draenor didn’t, and there’s no telling when Blizzard will introduce any more. So I’m taking it upon myself to make some suggestions. The war between the Alliance and the Horde is only going to get worse, and both sides need new troops! Join me after the jump for my ideas! And feel free to add some of your own in the comments!

First, a little background. World of Warcraft is all about the epic war between the Alliance and the Horde. When the game first came out, both sides had four playable races. The Alliance had humans, dwarves, gnomes and night elves. The Horde had orcs, trolls, tauren and the undead. The first expansion added draenai to the Alliance and blood elves to the Horde, and a few expansions later, we got werewolves for the Alliance and goblins for the Horde. All the good playable races were being snatched up!

Then came the Mists of Pandaria expansion a few years ago, which introduced the pandaren race (which would have been #1 on my list had I written this article several years ago). The pandaren were introduced as a neutral race, and players could pick for themselves whether to join the Alliance or the Horde. So adding more neutral races is an option.

Another problem with adding more races is that the game world is running out of room. World of Warcraft is set in the land of Azeroth, and since the beginning, Azeroth has been based on a pretty unchangeable map. There are only so many times that Blizzard can add a new, magical, previously unknown island to the game world.

So with all of those races already claimed, and with land running out for possible starting zones, what’s left to introduce?

6. Brown Orcs/Iron Dwarves/Mechagnomes, etc.

Gnome ancestors were robots!

Instead of adding an entirely new race, why not expand on the available races? Blizzard should open up the character creation to other versions and forms of the already playable races, even if it’s just a palette-swapped skin tone. You see, when you create your character, you’re given the option to adjust certain aesthetic details, like hair color, skin color or whether or not your character is sporting an epic beard. With a little tweaking, Blizzard could add whole new races, clans and character histories just by adding a few new aesthetic options.

For example, the orcs in World of Warcraft have green skin. But according to Warcraft lore, that green pigmentation is the result of demonic influence. Natural orcs without the demon influence actually have brown skin, and you get to meet some of those brown orcs during the game.

Some are cooler than others

So why not let players create brown orcs? In the game, the brown orcs become the allies of the green orcs, so it’s not like the change wouldn’t fit the story. The change would greatly expand the role-playing potential for players. And there’s no reason to stop at orcs. Why not add Iron Dwarves, Mechagnomes, Frost Trolls, and all the rest? I don’t think it would be too hard to implement, and would definitely save space by not needing new starting zones!

5. Arakkoa

Gobble Gobble!

Introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion, arakkoa are bird-people native to the planet Draenor, the original home planet of the orcs and the draenei. They’re feathery fighters who squawk up a storm when you try to invade their property in Outland. But they also fit all the necessary requirements of a playable race: they wear clothing and armor, they have both warriors and spell-casters, they have unique architecture for their home cities, they are intelligent, and now they have both male and female models. Warlords of Draenor even introduced new models for the arakkoa. Almost as if Blizzard was preparing for something…

Much sexier

Beyond all those qualities, the arakkoa are also a very unique race. There aren’t many sentient bird races in Warcraft, so they’ve got that going for them. And don’t worry about flight, I’m pretty sure the arakkoa are flightless, so that won’t be an insane advantage. Blizzard would just need to create a new, separate starting zone in Outland for the arakkoa, perhaps reveal their capital city in some unknown chunk of the planet, then come up with a way for the arakkoa to arrive on Azeroth, possibly as part of the Alliance. It worked for the pandaren!

4. Gnolls

My current wallpaper

I have always had a soft-spot for gnolls and I don’t know why. Gnolls are vicious hyena-men, more interested in killing and plundering than joining sides and fighting a war. But they’re one of my favorite races in all of Warcraft lore. They have a cool look, they laugh like hyenas, and I just think they would be neat to play. Gnolls could be added to the game as a neutral race, joining either the Horde or the Alliance as the player sees fit. From there they could just be a violent, funny sort of adventurer, traipsing along the fields of battle without a care in the world.

Hogger could be their racial leader!

I’m not sure what gnolls could do for a starting zone. I’ve always had this one idea where Blizzard could make a subterranean starting zone, with a whole unground kingdom. But I don’t think gnolls or hyenas are subterranean. Blizzard would have to carve out some new starting zone in the mountains somewhere to give the gnolls a proper starting zone, and that probably wouldn’t work. Though female gnolls would be all manner of tough to draw.

3. Centaurs

Maybe not join the Horde…

Priests in Warcraft have a spell called ‘Dominate Mind’ that allows them to take control of bad guys for a short while. And once upon a time, while playing a priest, I grabbed a centaur raider and just started galloping around the plains of Desolace! It was a lot of fun! And ever since then, I knew centaurs would be a cool playable race. Just because they can run awesomely.

So…Mongolians?

Of course, centaurs can be trouble. They have four horsey legs, so that would just be weird when creating armor. All other playable races are bipedal. But I think Blizzard could handle that with some creative choices. Instead of wearing pants and boots, just add body wraps or something. Several playable races, like trolls, tauran and drainei already don’t wear boots, and Blizzard found a way around that. Don’t discriminate against horse-people!

2. Naga

The Aquaman of playable races

These vile, aquatic warriors should be at the top of any list for new playable races (though they’re only #2 with me). Naga have a cool, unique look, they have both male and female character models, and they have been part of the franchise for a very long time. Naga are usually bad guys, but that’s not to say a faction couldn’t break off and join either the Alliance or (most likely) the Horde. They wear armor, they use weapons and cast spells, and they’re all roughly the same size as the other playable races. Naga would be pretty perfect.

All their weapons will be tridents

The starting zone would be easier to take care of: put it under water. Naga are aquatic, so you just have to give them a racial trait of being able to breath underwater, then set their entire starting zone and capital city under the oceans! There’s plenty of room down there to add a new continent. In fact, as far as the lore is concerned, Naga already have a capital city that has yet to make it into the game: Nazjatar. Just add that to the ocean somewhere and you’ve got all the room you need! Plus, how cool would it be to have a starting zone with full 3-dimensional movement, since they’d be swimming everywhere?

Of course, the Naga have some drawbacks. As you can see, their lower bodies are serpentine, but we already explained how Blizzard could work around that with the centaurs. Don’t discriminate against snake-people either!

1. Ogres

Ogres are big on nudity

We need to play as ogres! It’s gotta happen! Ogres have been with Warcraft since the very first game. They are found all throughout World of Warcraft in all shapes, sizes and colors. They’re warriors, they’re spell casters, some of them have two heads; what’s not to love? Heck, Ogres were already once considered a possibility. And Blizzard once had a great April Fool’s Day joke about two players controlling the two heads separately. But ogres are just dying for their chance at greatness!

Mid-riffs aren’t just for women

Of course, there are some problems. Ogres are stupid, so that might be trouble. And they don’t have a female ogre model in the games. Blizzard would have to invent one, and does anybody really want to see their version of a sexy ogre? Plus that thing with the two-heads would be kind of weird to play, but then some ogres only have one head.

Ogres are an obvious Horde race, and there’s already a tribe of Ogres in the Horde: the Stonemaul clan. They live in Duskwallow Marsh, which hasn’t had much to do since the Alliance city of Theramore was destroyed. Why not turn Duskwallow into a new starting zone for Ogres?

Also, while researching this list, I discovered that Dagg’um Ty’gor, the ogre ninja exists. So my love for this game just jumped up a few notches.

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What races would you like to see become playable in World of Warcraft? Any of the new Pandarian races an option? What about some of the frozen races from Northrend, like the Taunka or the Tuskarr walrus-men? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear your ideas!

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