Voted for Something New, because that seems the most likely to me: many of the races from ES1 are already in-game either as minor factions or through quest decisions. If Amplitude were to refresh an old faction for ES2, I'd guess either Harmony (as scientists?) or Amoeba (as ecologists), due to their interestingly different gameplay options. 

Groo wrote:

I think a luxury-ressources related faction would be nice. Whatever this means...

Horatio are already somewhat luxuries-focused with their unique improvements and hero skills, which reduces the likelihood of such a faction in my opinion. One whose gameplay affinity revolved around luxuries would be interesting, though...

For my part, I'd like to see... the Allayi return as a major faction! Never gonna happen, but a guy can dream.

I seriously doubt that it will be a returning ES1 faction.

Seriously, seriously hope it's not, either.

Amplitude shines when they think outside the box. The Allayi and Morgawr are two of the best 4X factions I have ever played or seen. Let us pray that their creativity and imagination are once again tapped like they were with those.

DevildogFF wrote:

I seriously doubt that it will be a returning ES1 faction.

Seriously, seriously hope it's not, either.

Amplitude shines when they think outside the box. The Allayi and Morgawr are two of the best 4X factions I have ever played or seen. Let us pray that their creativity and imagination are once again tapped like they were with those.

I'd like to see one faction return at some point down the line, so long as it adds something new to the game. For the other three however (assuming we're going to end up with 12 again) I'd like to see something new, and I'm sure Amplitude will come up with something interesting.

thesweetbabyray wrote:

Hopefully we do get some hints dropped soon! (Or find ones we missed.) I bet we'll get some when the fighter/bomber update comes around, I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Well, the early version of the new update is out. It features a new quest, which is said to "give players a chance to discover who exactly has been assembling huge amounts of fighters and letting them loose on the galaxy". Perhaps this will give a peek a what's coming next. As CyRob noted in the announcement thread, the pirate hero added in this update was originally labelled HeroDLC01Pirate01 in the localization files, suggesting that it was orginally going to be part of a major expansion but has been moved forward.

Has anyone had a chance to try out the new quest?