Community

It will be at least another year, very possibly 2 years before release.  You plan campaigns that far in advance?

I don't have any compilation of information, but we can be extremely confident that the initial release will include humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings.  Chances are very good for half-elves, half-orcs, and gnomes.  Chances are somewhat good for tieflings and dragonborn.  Anything else starts getting slim on the chances of availability on release.  Maybe warforged?

For classes, we can be extremely confident on fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard (maybe called mage).  Very good chances for paladin, druid, and ranger.  Good chance for barbarian, bard, monk, sorcerer, and warlock.  Decent chance for warlord.  Some chance for assassin.  Dark horse for anything else.

They've specifically said that they intend to include in the initial release every class that has been in the first PHB of any edition. That means:

Assassin
Bard
Barbarian
Cleric
Druid
Illusionist/Specialty Mage
Fighter
Monk
Paladin
Ranger
Rogue
Warlock
Warlord
Wizard
Sorcerer

(Someone correct me if I'm missing any)

People have debated whether each of those classes will appear as an actual class, or whether sub-systems will handle some of them. I'm very confident that they will all be actual classes, and that they will be in the initial release.

As far as races, they haven't been as forthcoming. I think you can safely rely on all the races from the 3e PHB (human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling, half-elf, half-orc), and quite possibly the tiefling and dragonborn from 4e (although I hope they include aasimar if they are doing tiefling, and provide a pre-4e version as an option).

They've strongly hinted at wanting to bring back most of the previous settings for 5e.  They've also hinted that the settings might allow you to choose which version or point in time you use them. Ie, Forgotten Realms pre-Spellplague or post-Spellplague. Some of the designers and developers have expressed personal interest in particular older settings which gives us hope that we can get most of the 2e cosmology back (for those who want to use it--other options will abound). No details that I'm aware of, but in my opinion, you can probably bank on Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Eberron, and Points of Light showing up in the edition. Planescape and Spelljammer have enough of a fanbase that they're going to make it in too, as will Dark Sun and Ravenloft. After that, it gets murkier, but I'd bet on at least Birthright, a good chance of Mystara, and probably one or two entirely new settings.

The link posted above is a good start. There are also a lot of little hints in the various blog posting and articles they've written here.

I'm not sure if there is a fully up to date compilation at this point, although I'd be interested in it also. At this point, you just have to follow the updates closely to keep up with everything being said.

Also, they do change their minds sometimes, and respond to feedback (particular from the official playtest surveys--so that's your best bet if you want your voice heard).

I'm estimating a very late 2013, or first half of 2014 release date.

True. I hope they present both pre-4E and 4E versions of aasimar and tiefling. They can't really combine them without messing with the lore of one or the other.