I don’t foresee new classes, but instead new weapons and things to make existing classes deeper than they already are. They spoke some time ago about wanting to have all the play-styles covered from the get go, because constantly adding professions only causes more problems. Maybe we’ll see monks, or paragons to even out the armor availability.
Tengu and largos will become player races, either at the same time or one following the other. I feel kodan are just going to be this game’s furbolgs, wanted by a vocal lobby but never offered for a variety of reasons. Tengu and largos, on the other hand, compliment one another and have everything needed in them to become compelling player races.
Kodan, while a popular choice (on forums, anyway), don’t quite have the makings of a player race yet. For one, you have a very limited breadth of customization options to work with. Sure, they could expand this as they did with asura, but making a race of polar bears suddenly show up with grizzlies or something might be a little jarring.
No manes means no possibility for hairstyles, and their eyes would span various browns and blacks. I’m aware they could decide to change any of this, but I feel like it would compromise the artist’s original vision and dramatically cheapen what everyone loves about them so much.
And, beyond their voices, males and females look no different from one another. Changing all of this to make them a player race would feel, at least to me, very Blizzardesque and a little disappointing. I’m surely not alone in hoping that new player races won’t all be spins on various beasts. Cats, birds, bears… I’d like to see a little more.
Largos feel like that little bit more. For all the fanfare they caused, charr are one of the least played races right now. They look pretty awkward in many armors, so I’m afraid tengu wont’ be very different in that regard. Something to counterbalance the colorful birdies would be very good to have in that first expansion. Something darker, like largos.
The contrast would feel very similar to the Luxon and Kurzick nations. We’re also immensely helped out by largos in the personal story, and there’s NPCs along Malchor’s Fall speaking of numerous largos helping refugees in the area. Note the Sea of Sorrows and Strait of Malchor is large enough to offer room for both races, too.
It all just falls to how big and how frequent expansions will be. Any new races will probably be added sooner than later, because it’d be much easier to write them in while everything is still fresh and flexible. We’ll see, and in my case, I’ll hope that I’m at least somewhat right. That said, I hope those wanting kodan can somehow get their wish someday. At least you have tonics.
