New Alliance Race Speculation thickens!

[Kevin]

Right now, I'm sticking with Draeni.  There are easy ways of making it so they lost their shamanic traditions in Azeroth (cut off from Ancestor spirits and such).  Likewise, there is an area east of Redridge and north of Swamp of Sorrows that could work as a starting area for the Draeni.  The other advantages is that the Draeni have ties to Outland (just as the Blood Elves do).

The only other possible race I could see for the Alliance to get would be Ogres as they too would have ties to Outland (it is where the Ogres came from).  Where to place the Ogres start area would be interesting as well, possible the area northwest of Elwynn and west of Dun Morgor.  (Potentially somewhere on Kalimdor too, but where I'm not sure and why I don't know either since I don't recall any Ogre mobs in Kalimdor.)

A third possibility, but I put this much lower on the list than the above two, would be either Quillboar or Centaur.  Quillboar because they are trying survive and the Horde are making it difficult.  Centaur due to the quest chains in Desolace with the Alliance trying to form an alliance with one of the tribes there.  The problem that arises from these races is that there is no ties to Outland and locating a capital city in the vicinity of Orgrimmar and Thunder Bluff would be difficult to say the least.
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There is the large area south of the Badlands and north of Redridge that could be used as a start zone that feeds into Redridge, might have to be a slighlty more fleshes out area than Elwynn to make the the transistion to Redridge better but eh. Though I guess Redridge is technically contested, I've never understood why and I don't see why they couldn't change that. Ogre could easily start there as it is close to Blackrock (just east of it) and well Blackrock was the home of the horde (with their ogre allies) for quite some time plenty of time for Ogres to expand out to the east and set up a home.

I don't see the Centaur since horde does the exact same thing as alliance does out there in desolace with building faction with one tribe. While horde has more problems with Centaur it's only because the Centaur home continent is Kalimdor and that is where the Horde had to set up shop. If you follow the quest line on the alliance side, alliance is having the same problems with them and that is part of the reason you are trying to get the tribes to go to war with each other. Wipe them out so that you can mop up what is left of both sides. It's not as important for alliance since they aren't on the doorsteps of their capitols like it is for horde though.

Quillboar could be interesting, many of the horde quests talk about how it would be a damn scary sight if the quillboar tribes were united, kinda like what happened when the orc tribes finally united and stopped fighting themselves. As you mentioned though, no ties to Outland.

I think the draeni seem to be the forerunner in my mind too. Though I think it will be a prettier version than what we see in the game. Looks do play a part in my decision on races though I do play all races. Humans, undead and night elves are my least favorite races to play in that order, mainly for superficial reasons. The human females are just too vapid, the males are too corny and the race is so damn corrupt at the top levels all the time in every WoW game I just always feel like any thing I do for them will turn out to cause some huge world effecting problem. The constantly exposed knees and elbows on the undead as well and the posture bugs me, but the biggest reason is I still feel they shouldn't be part of the horde and only are because Blizzard had to put them somewhere and didn't want to try and tackle 3 major player factions. You follow the early quests and undead are still out to kill everyone, including other horde members. I do also have problems playing female trolls because of how they run, the knock kneed running style bugs me.

What is the point of that? Well I can find no connection at all to Draeni to find a real reason to play them. Maybe if I finally finish the WarIII expansion single player stuff (I've done all the rest of the warcraft games) there might be more of a connection. I've done the blood elf campaign so I've got a small connection with them but will likely only play one because I know some of my friends are planning to start horde because of them and it would be nice to be in the same start zone with them. There also isn't anything in the look of the draeni that is appealing on any level. There is a 'coolness' factor to trolls, orcs, undead, and tauren on different levels. There is the silly cute factor for gnomes. Dwarves and elves have such long fantasy traditions outside of games that they have appeal on those levels as well even if these are different versions of them. I just can't find many levels of connection to draeni like other races for people. Sure I will have one if that is the race just to have one, but it will be like my one human character. I have one so I have one.