The fantasy of playing a blood elf - What is so capitvating?

[Kyphael]

To each their own indeed. I personally don't find this attractive one bit:



But yeah, I myself am a little edgy in real life so I really like the Ren'dorei. I especially love their quotes.

Well I don't care what the males look like, I know the Nightborne faces look like an old catcher's mitt, but I like the air of superiority the female Nightborne and Blood Elves possess. Nightborne in particular with the way the females carry themselves harken back to Cleopatra. Meanwhile, Blood Elf females, what's there not to like? Hot elven rangers and sorceresses. I actually wish the blood elf male was more rugged looking like the Nightborne male, as I don't like my characters to look soft, but my paladin's face is hidden by a helmet most of the time, anyway.

[Varodoc]

Well I don't care what the males look like, I know the Nightborne faces look like an old catcher's mitt, but I like the air of superiority the female Nightborne and Blood Elves possess. Nightborne in particular with the way the females carry themselves harken back to Cleopatra. Meanwhile, Blood Elf females, what's there not to like? Hot elven rangers and sorceresses. I actually wish the blood elf male was more rugged looking like the Nightborne male, as I don't like my characters to look soft, but my paladin's face is hidden by a helmet most of the time, anyway.

Play a void elf then. The male void elves have some beard options that make them look rugged.

[wushootaki]

To each their own indeed. I personally don't find this attractive one bit:



But yeah, I myself am a little edgy in real life so I really like the Ren'dorei. I especially love their quotes.

Also don't forget that the player model Nightbourne are nowhere near the same quality as the ones that were modeled diretly with their armor. You can even see it in your example. The left's face is more gaunt, thinner and sleek, with smaller eyes covered by brows. Even that hairstyle isn't one you can get. It looks like someone who has seen some shit and grown wise because of it. On the other hand, the right has chubby cheeks and looks like its smelling poop on its upper lip.

[Kyphael]

But was it really Tolkien or rather the artists and filmmakers taking his ideas and visualizing them? Arwen was a pretty minor character as far as book time went (stuff that she did in the films was done by others in the book). When I read the books for the first time so many many years ago (40 years ago, actually), Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf...even (and especially) Boromir...I could identify much more with.

Good point, I meant Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema's trilogies, I just didn't articulate that well. What they did with Tolkien's ideas made that elf look mainstream. In High School, my music teacher wasn't even a nerd, but she knew Legolas because, and these are her words, "he's one hot elf." Those trilogies, the first in particular made the idea of tall, attractive elves mainstream. It made a ton of money, got critical acclaim, and even a ton of awards. It was like universally-acclaimed and it did more for elves than any other race in the genre. That same general audience that might dabble in WoW will see the blood elves and go, "ooh, Legolas! I'm making my character like Legolas in Lord of the Rings!"

[Varodoc]

Also don't forget that the player model Nightbourne are nowhere near the same quality as the ones that were modeled diretly with their armor. You can even see it in your example. The left's face is more gaunt, thinner and sleek, with smaller eyes covered by brows. Even that hairstyle isn't one you can get. It looks like someone who has seen some shit and grown wise because of it. On the other hand, the right has chubby cheeks and looks like its smelling poop on its upper lip.

Yeah, I was making fun of the right one. If the nightborne looked more like their NPCs counterpart, they'd certainly be more popular.

[Jester Joe]

Also:

It triggers me more than it should that you're putting Link here in a thread about elves when he's not a elf. He's just a human that happens to have pointy ears, that's all Hylians are.

Ah, you dig the edge lord look and dark brooding type personality. To each their own.

Personally, I think blood elves and nightborne are my two favorites of the elf variant, lore-wise and aesthetically. They just define what I want out of elves, even if the Sin'dorei lost their edge, they just have such a rich history and in an MMORPG, it's all about making your own story. I too hate night elves and everything about them, but the Night Warrior eyes are cool.

I mean, I'm not one for edgelord and dark brooding, but I prefer Void elves over Nightborne and Night elves. Nightborne just look awful as player characters for whatever reason. They constantly look like someone's holding a turd under their nose.

To answer the OP, for Horde at the time it was either "Go Tauren or Blood elf" as a paladin, and Taurens look awful in transmogs for the most part.
For Void elves? I needed a new warlock, and had the boost from preordering BfA and just unlocked the allied races, so figured Void elf was a good choice.

[Kyphael]

Play a void elf then. The male void elves has some beard options that make him look rugged.

I do play a Void Elf, he's my main actually, but I use the lightest skin tone and transmog the 7th Legionnaire hood on him to try to pass him off as a High Elf to the best of my ability. I just hate the hair. I like full beards as far as facial hair goes, and not even VE's have that.

[Amaterasu65]

I do play a Void Elf, he's my main actually, but I use the lightest skin tone and transmog the 7th Legionnaire hood on him to try to pass him off as a High Elf to the best of my ability. I just hate the hair. I like full beards as far as facial hair goes, and not even VE's have that.

Pro tip: don't play a race you don't like.

[Kyphael]

@Jester Joe That's actually why I like the Nightborne, they're pompous as hell. Blood Elves are the more humble, and Nightborne replaced them as the arrogant, magic-crazies.

[Pakheth]

Apart from tauren female my most played race is male belf, with 4 so far(priest, paladin, warlock and demonhunter). To me the male belves are very bishonen, the anime aesthetic is definitely there.
If it wasn't for me being mainly Horde I might have made a void elf at some point too. I want to create a Nightborne male but goddamn Blizz did a bad job at the playable version cus they look so pissed and nothing like the dignified NPCs we meet ingame.

I short, I like their looks, their lore, their voices and how gear looks on them. Belf male wave animation for life.

[Kyphael]

Pro tip: don't play a race you don't like.

I like what it's supposed to be, the High Elf variant for the Alliance, I just dislike small aspects of it that I can conceal and ignore. I'll take what I can get. When Blizzard gives you lemons, make lemonade. In this instance, I had to make lime-ade.

[Magicon]

Looking at realm pop stats, this race is the most popular race amongst active players at the end game - i.e. basically active users of the game.

Blood elf race (incl high elves/void elves i.e. all things THalassian) generate the most conversation, whines, hypes and crazed fandoms.

Okay, Dudes! Tell me why are you so worked up about this race so.. what's your reason for playing em or liking em? And has any other race in wow competed for your affection over them???

They have one of the coolest stories ingame and looks awesome. Also, their story is a part of the Story of Arthas and their kingdom lies in the northern Lordaeron. Also, I like that they are feminine, but still deadly in combat.

[Dellis0991]

Night elves and nightborne look like shit. I can't take them seriously with those huge ass eyes and hands.

I much prefer void elves over the blood elves because they look hotter with dark skin and british accent. Also because blood elves have basically gone back to being lame goody goody two shoes who don't dabble in dark magic because it's dangerous.

Good on the blood elves, I hope they stay far away from the hentai gods as possible. Void elves are too much.

[Atherions]

In legion Arcane torrent was really strong in M+, so all the alliance to horde rerollers all picked Blood Elf

[Amaterasu65]

I like what it's supposed to be, the High Elf variant for the Alliance, I just dislike small aspects of it that I can conceal and ignore. I'll take what I can get. When Blizzard gives you lemons, make lemonade. In this instance, I had to make lime-ade.

I get what you're saying, I'd prefer HE over VE but I still prefer VE over BE as a race if that makes sense. BEs are very boring, VEs bring some extra badassery and I love the purple aesthetic.

[Razion]

There was a metric that went around a couple years ago that showed how often characters of various races and classes were made on D&D Beyond. At the time on realmpop for WoW, there was a very similar spread of races. In both WoW and D&D Humans and Elves were the most common. So, what then, pulls players in D&D to that type of elf, while in WoW players gravitate towards Blood Elves over Night Elves? Faction? Friends? What is interesting across the data, is that a lot more people made Dwarves in D&D than in WoW to the point where it was the next highest choice from players. And yet, in WoW, Dwarves are one of the least-played. Even if faction and friends made an impact, we still see a fair bit of representation from races like Night Elves by comparison. I think a fair conclusion, that lot of people have already came to, is that people like playing things that are conventionally attractive. In D&D, I think it would be fair to say, players are getting more of what they want out of Dwarves than they do in WoW. But perhaps in WoW then it could be said that Blood Elves are giving people more of what they want than what players imagine for themselves of more traditional elves - which, I guess in this case, would be equivalent to Night Elves.

So, okay, what makes Night Elves and Blood Elves different? Druidism, obviously, but Druids are one of the most played classes in the game. And, a long time ago, when asked on why Night Elves didn't have access to Paladins very early on in game's life, one of the answers given was that it would have been too popular. And so, with Blood Elves, as we see, the race is certainly played a lot - so why then, is Paladin not one of the most played classes? I think we can say then, that classes probably isn't the factor we're looking for, but rather something in the presentation or attitude of what people value. There's a shared element of Druids and Blood Elves I think that can kind of explain what people may look for when making characters. They want something a little... better-than-thou, perhaps? In the way that a Druid may be akin to recycling, or a Blood Elf might be arrogant and living the high life in fabulous splendor and beauty, we also see that Druids and Blood Elves can kind of enforce these representations of themselves. For especially the kinds of nerds that gravitated themselves to D&D and WoW a couple years ago at least, a kind of righteous but enforced power dynamic like these that are also visually pleasing in conventional means is probably precisely what they're looking for. I guess that's all a little spit-bally, but I think a little fair given the kind of data we have to work with as players is probably about as insightful as we can get short of surveying tens of thousands of players ourselves.

[Kyphael]

Indeed..proven by all those (cringy) variations on the name of players in WoW that I have encountered over the years

I am ashamed to say I did try to name my Blood Elf Legolas back in 2009 but proud to say I didn't try "Legolaz" because of how gaudy it would have been.

Now that I think about it, a female blood elf with red hair named Legolass would be clever. I might just male one when I get home.

Nobody take my name idea!!! I'm stuck at work until 1. There will be hell to pay!!! >:O

[Otimus]

They're the least ugly and most normal looking race in a faction full of ugly races, which is probably the most popular faction.

Fancy elves in fancy houses with magic vs a bunch of weirdos in mud huts, zombies, or midget money gremlins

[Kyphael]

I get what you're saying, I'd prefer HE over VE but I still prefer VE over BE as a race if that makes sense. BEs are very boring, VEs bring some extra badassery and I love the purple aesthetic.

If they just didn't have the tentacles and at least one customization option to look like Alleria (tattoos that would distinguish them from Sin'dorei), they'd be perfect.

[Dellis0991]

I am ashamed to say I did try to name my Blood Elf Legolas back in 2009 but proud to say I didn't try "Legolaz" because of how gaudy it would have been.

Now that I think about it, a female blood elf with red hair named Legolass would be clever. I might just male one when I get home.

Nobody take my name idea!!! I'm stuck at work until 1. There will be hell to pay!!! >:O

Too late making one right now