Allied Race Starting Zones Now Accessible to All Players
A recent build of The War Within beta has not only added portals to the new Earthen starting zone, but unlocked the portals of all previous Allied Races for players of any race to use!
Since their addition in Battle for Azeroth, Allied Races have typically come with a short introductory starting zone. Though quite small compared to the typical core race starting experience, these zones acted as small hubs not only for lore characters to reside in, but as a spot to return to when obtaining their heritage sets. Due to their limited gameplay purpose, they were never accessible for other players — until now!
Alliance Portals
The Alliance has the most significant gain of the two factions, with five portals made accessible and moved behind the Stormwind Embassy. Of the four old portals, only Mechagon City was previously accessible to everyone, but it required flying all the way to Mechagon on the outskirts of Kul Tiras, making it rather bothersome to reach. Telogrus Rift was also recently made accessible in 10.2.7, not only to Alliance players but to the Horde as well during our brief escapade with Alleria.
The Vindicaar and Shadowforge City were never accessible to other players before now, however. While the Vindicaar is rather small and has a duplicate on Argus, Shadowforge City is quite an expansive hub compared to the other allied races, and the only other way to access it was in the instanced version with hostile mobs.
Horde Portals
By comparison, the changes to the Horde's 'portal hub' outside of the Orgrimmar Embassy are less pronounced. While the teleporter to the Earthen's Hall of Awakening is a new addition, Horde players have always had access to both Thunder Totem and the Nighthold, and races such as the Mag'har and Vulpera lack unique starting zones beyond their small hubs that already exist in Orgrimmar. Nevertheless, easy access to Suramar and Highmountain from Orgrimmar is a nice quality of life addition.
For most players, these additions
