Hmmm, I voted on every race as asked, and thus want to provide the comments:

Alliance Arrakkoa - let them be what the original Draenei were supposed to be. A dark, rogue-ish, primitive nations with a hug grudge against the orcs and everything they stand for.


Alliance AND Horde Ethereals - a pretty boring race, in my humble opinion, best suited for neutrality. Can't see why would they prefer one faction over another - have them be mercenaries.


Horde Naga - that one is a no-brainer. Totalitarian, fel-loving highborne elves unite!


Alliance AND Horde Drakonid - don't see why would they prefer one faction or another.


Alliance Centaur - thinking more about "Children of Cenarius", but the Centaur are related to his backstory one way or another, so it works. With Horde... Not so much so. I can see some separate members (or even a tribe) joining with the Horde, but I think that overall the Centaur tribes are on Horde's hitlist, if only because Thrall favored the tauren.


Alliance Furbolg - the original Furry Night Elves. Thus, they are as "Alliance" as the NElves are.


Alliance AND Horde Satyr - one could make the same argument as with the naga and throw them to the Horde... But I feel that the Satyr are more related to the NElven storyline (while the Naga heavily cross with the BElven), plus there is already a thematic of "Satyr redemption back into NElves" in game... So I'd let them choose.


Horde Ogres - a no-brainer. Truthfully, "Alliance Ogres" could have been an interesting experiment, but, just like "Alliance Goblins" it is likely to be swept aside in favor of the old lore nostalgia. Which isn't bad.


Alliance Vrykul - another no-brainer. A barbarous race wouldn't hurt the Alliance, and is heavily related to other races' backstory. Them joining the Horde would end up in some more "Forsaken ancestors" travesty and the like. So, Alliance.


Now, regarding the...

Undead Nerubians? What the heck? Pffff, that's never going to work. They can be Forsaken NPCs or something. I dunno.

That being said,

Alliance AND Horde Normal Living Nerubians - the only way I can see them being playable is as mercenaries/adventurers/emissaries to Alliance and Horde from the rising new Nerubian Empire. I don't see why they would prefer one faction over another... Though if you subscribe to the "Horde did Azjol-Nerub" line of thought, I guess you could make an argument that the Nerubians joined the Horde out of gratitude for helping htem reconquer the palace halls... But that's just my own Horde bias, I think.

Would there be any place for an Alliance race that practices fel magic? I think that since the Horde now have two races that practice Light magic (Tauren and Blood Elves) and have managed to make it still fit the Horde, that I don't think it would be too out of place for there to exist an Alliance race that practices fel in a way that still makes them fit the Alliance.

I sometimes think Satyr could fill that role.

Yep, Lord Grimtale is a good fellow.

Don't we already have humans, worgen, gnomes, and now dwarves? Are they any better for using fel?

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Gnomes are kinda awesome, when the demon they summon doesn't kill them for comic relief.

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If we get an "Azshara"/South Seas-themed expansion, I'd like to see a break away faction of the Naga join The Horde and use a "lost" island close to Quel'thalas as their starting area, or an updated Quel'thalas used as their starting zone. If the latter were chosen, I'd either have this break away faction of Naga take over Zul'aman and make it their new "capital", or I'd have them call the broken part of Silvermoon as their new HQ. I think the latter works better because it gives Blizzard a strong reason to update a sorely outdated fan-favorite zone from BC with new lore, flying, etc...

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- Arrodis on Moon Guard-US. Wikia Page.

- Noitora, "A Couple of Illidan Spoilers" Thread (Pg. 17; Post #339)

They have certain people that do use fel but it's not a major theme for them.

I would like a race that practices fel as if they were masters at it, or if it were as major a part of their culture as the Light would be for Horde races like Tauren and Blood Elves.

I get the whole M'uru purification thing and the Sunwalkers, but I don't really see those two entities making that strong of a cultural stride within their perspective regimes. I feel like Tauren are still just as strongly tied to a shamanistic/warrior culture and the blood elves to their magical nature, while the respective paladin groups are more of a fringe allegation. Is there something I am missing?

I'd say actually bringing something like the 'Light' and giving it a Horde spin is pretty strong enough to be considered so. That and Tauren and Blood Elves have managed to become very iconic as Paladins, at least that's what I think.

In all fairness, I guess an easier solution would be to just develop the Dark Iron Dwarves' understanding of Fel magic and possibly explain better why the Alliance are being lenient about it with more than just a single sentence in Tides of War.

To me, the most interesting take on a race and their relationship to the Light is that of the Blood Elves. Every other race can only use the Light through faith, but the Blood Elves are very unique in that they simply seem to "cheat" the system when it comes to being able to wield the Light's power. Blood Knights are closer to warrior-mages as opposed to the typical warrior-priest combination that'd you'd usually attribute to the Paladin class, and Blood Elven priest are more akin to mages who simply wield the Light as opposed to the Arcane then they are to your typical priest. I love the way that the Blood Elves simply bypass faith--bypass any worship or ritual--and simply take the Light's power from the Sunwell that they're bio-logically attuned to. A slight change indeed occurred in Blood Elven culture when the Sunwell was "reborn", but the Blood Elves seemed to regain their respect for the Light as a powerful source of magic, as opposed to reverting back to worshiping the magical force religiously. The majority appear to still be atheists, in other words, and this lack of slavishness keeps in-line with the usual arrogance attributed to Blood Elves in general, and also allows for the Blood Elves to be free from any sort of "religious conscious" when it comes to exploring the Light's potential applications as a form of magic. The possibilities for story here are immense; and I can't wait for a bit of future development.

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- Arrodis on Moon Guard-US. Wikia Page.

- Noitora, "A Couple of Illidan Spoilers" Thread (Pg. 17; Post #339)

Thinking the Nerubians would do anything out of GRATITUDE is a misunderstanding imo.

They'd side with the Horde because it's a more effective war machine and better suited to helping them reclaim their former glory which is all they give a damn about.

The Alliance would care about them actually being good or trustworthy with said rebuilt empire, but the Horde would get aid from them in whatever form and in return they'd murder a bunch of faceless or scourge down in their tunnels and never care again so long as the Nerubians pull their weight and don't backstab them.

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

Am I missing something here or do people seriously want to play as an undead spider, let alone a living spider?

If Blizzard has trouble with making Naga be player-ready in terms of models and such, think about how much worse it would be for the nerubians.

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Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was the most disappointing thing since my son. I mean, how much more could you possibly fuck up the entire backstory to Star Wars? And while my son eventually hanged himself in the bathroom of a gas station, the unfortunate reality of the Star Wars prequels is that they'll be around... forever. They will never go away. They can never be undone.

There is no trouble with Naga. I bet they're next in line and if they aren't there's still no problem with the tail.

Vehement disagreement.

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Expect nothing and anything will surprise you.

What's your problem? The tail can wrap around mounts, we already have several races who shit all over armor display, pants can appear as trousers (it already works that way in WoW Model Viewer). There is no issue.

Nerubian player models would be what the Twin Emperor's are to the Qiraji, a special variant of bipeds for versatility and individuality.

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

I'd prefer the Squidward-treatment for regular Nerubians and not adress it at all. The Emperrors look so much like humans in armor they'd make a playable nerubian race absolutely pointless as far as visuals go. Then again so do Dwarfs, Gnome, all elves and most depictions of Draenei.

Well that's too radical a model change not to be addressed in lore even with squidward legs.

You don't have a race go from horse sized to man-sized like nothing happened.

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My Worldbuilding:
http://bloodinkworlds.tumblr.com/

I don't know, just make them a mix between the towering big ones and the regular ones, it's not like Nerubians don't have sub races. Just... nothing too human-looking.

Get too far away from being human and players will have issues relating to the character. Hell, get too far away from being human and the devs will have problems coming up with two distinct genders of it.

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Expect nothing and anything will surprise you.

in general i'd like to see the sexual dimorphism gone. Troll females look too different from Troll males and Draenei don't even look like the same species.

Second: people relate to non-human characters all the time. I play mainly walking cows and i have no problem liking them. People play walking Pandas and have no problems with them. You really give humans too little credit. Imagination is a powerfull tool.

I was talking about your argument with Sky about human-sized Nerubians. Taking the Mantid as an example of something that looks dramatically non-human (and assuming that an human-sized arachna-thingy would look similar) is what I'm talking about when I say "this is too non-human for most players to relate to."

Regarding the Tauren: in every meaningful way, they're humans with a cow head, hooves, and a tail. You could swap out those components and have a really burly three-fingered human. That's "human enough" so to speak.

I'm not going to really get into my arguments about the naga, because at this point I'm willing to recognize that it's fruitless to argue about it.

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Expect nothing and anything will surprise you.

Eh. I really don't see why players wouldn't. As soon as it's their's to control it stops being a certain race anyways and becomes the player's avatar. Identifying too much with your char's race only brings about Lordaeron posts.