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

[Galathir]

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

Yeah, pretty much this. I switched from Goblin because after a while looking at the model made my eyes bleed.
And they have a good racial, even postchange.

[Grimbold21]

It's for koreanphiles who want to play an effeminate male

[ravenmoon]

The blood elves intrigued me in WC3 and I was really looking forward to see them become playable. I don't like the male ones because of their portrayal being... rather fabulous, but the female were all beauties. I think Blizzard intentially tried to make them more attractive because they needed a good looking race on Horde to help out faction balance. For some reason people also find female draeneis captivating which just baffles me.

Male BElf DK & DH as well as male Void Elf buck that trend completely, have you tried them?

[Varodoc]

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.

But why? Tentacles make it fun for everyone. I do hope they give them the option to look like Alleria eventually. Like a sort of high elf-void elf hybrid.

[Pandragon]

Racial+Aesthetic.

Torrent is good, it's dumb to be horde side melee and not a blood elf, plus they look good in most armour sets.

Pretty much this. I also really like their story. I'd probably play a forsaken as well if they stood up straight and we either had full skin versions, or all bone versions. Don't like the Day of the dead zombie look they have now.

[ravenmoon]

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 thought you would love the highborne, night elves will probably get a 9.0 aesthetic for them, as it's the highest demand for the race - but who knows.

[Dellis0991]

It's for koreanphiles who want to play an effeminate male

Made me spit my tea out.

[ravenmoon]

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.

I'm a bit surprised blizzard didn't do designer beards/stubble for their playable thalassian elves.

[Syegfryed]

oh good, the days of one elf topic per day are back? will you bring the other elf riders of the apocalypse, they were indeed silent lately?

what is the fantasy of playing an cliche elf? like any other rpg they exist, selfish, arrogant, self-righteous, think they are perfect and better than everyone, or think they are the special, the one who the world cannot understand, the edgy crap blablabla, the classic mage, the classic legolas.

elves in wow and their players are not that different, blizzard tried to do something unique and different with blood elves in wc3, but sadly, they just went back to the general lotr archetype.

[Kyphael]

I thought you would love the highborne, night elves will probably get a 9.0 aesthetic for them, as it's the highest demand for the race - but who knows.

I would love Highborne, is that confirmed? Night Elves badly need that kick in the pants to make them interesting. Night Warrior was a step in the right direction, but if customization is Shadowlands' theme, give all the OG races as much as possible.

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Too late making one right now

Watch me have the luck where you manage to even guess my realm.

[Dellis0991]

But why? Tentacles make it fun for everyone. I do hope they give them the option to look like Alleria eventually. Like a sort of high elf-void elf hybrid.

Oh no.....

[MiiiMiii]

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???

Because the female one looks "cute"/"hot"/"cool"?

Many people don't play a character to relate to it. They just like the way they look. No lore, no IRL resembelance, nothing more than "they look cute/hot/cool".

The only reason Blood Elf has more popularity than Night Elf on Alliance is cuz Alliance has more races that fit the same "they look cute/hot/cool" criteria.

[Asrialol]

Best racials. That's it. It's not rocket science.

[Varodoc]

Oh no.....

Yes yes!

[ravenmoon]

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.

I agree with your observation here. I have always believed, the conventional beauty of the high elves makes the popular hot favourites. For night elves to compete successfully against them with their purple skin and more alien darker aeasthetic needed to be made aesthetically more attractive and have a more attractive lore in every way. It was the only way you would tempt players to seriously consider a night elf as a competitor.

The anime touch for the male blood elf was a smart move, I wonder if a conventionally handsome face and gait with animations for the night elf would have competed with a slightly less attractive male blood elf but anime orientated.. anime I suspect plays a larger factor.

You tend to have to make dark elves more powerful, with more oomph for players to pick them over hteir fairer counterparts, and blizzard originally did that with their insane wonder night elf history and capabilities, the night elves you meet in WC3 are phenomenal, and the end of the story makes the restoration of their arcane legacy a real possibility given the reason for their ban was over and they still had their more powerful well of power.

Problem is in wow, attempts to make the horde numbers grow, facilitated a very good effort in the blood elves, they did it so well, the devs hearts shifted from the nightelves where we can see it was clearly at in Wc3 to classic, right back to the blood elves. Scared of making any alliance race more appealing and thus stealing from horde numbers, Night elves never got the visual upgrade they would have needed to compete with the blood elves.

This failure is why I suspect the demand for high elves is unusually higher than it would normally be expected on the alliance. The alliance elves (until the void elves) just don't compete successfully with the horde elves, and thus the horde elf is craved a lot more especially since the race has a faction still aligned somewhat with the alliance. If night elves had had a much stronger treatment, it may have been different. If the Cataclysm had done Dire Maul like a slightly ruined SUramar or Zin'Azshari (from Warbringers), and the night elf model upgraded with oranately adorend highborne options, combining the powerful wild savage forest druid with the powerful magic city based kaldorei empire night elf, and a story that was compelling (pretty everything Suramar provided but with very attractive night elven high/nightborne models), I think high elf cries would have been a lot less than they are.

Void elves actually ended up angering the fans because of they quite obviously appeared rushed and thrown in despite their dark aesthetics and players not been fooled and fully aware the devs were aware they wanted high elves. The weak night elf plays a large role in this situation. At this point it is irreversible. With Void elves in, the model is finally available on the alliance with a purple aesthetic. So the night elves don't necessarily need to be better any longer. And if they are, it would be a nicety.

A highborne customisation might make them more attractive, but I doubt it, even with a much improved night elf male face option for the highborne, you still have the casting animation and awkward narrow waist to deal with, which wouldn't look so bad if the leg stans in robes wasn't so bad on the males.

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.

Before wow's playable calss options made druidsm the obvious thing to say, if you count all night elf lore (i.e. Moonguard, highborne, illidari, nightborne, Moon priestesses, Black Moon), the more obvious difference is the night, star and moon themes.

And this accoutns for all the lore and portrayls, night elves are dark under starlight and moonlight. They have stronger more primal magical themes across the board from the arcane (as demonstrated in Suramar), to fel (via the Illidari) and nature (via the druids), their priesthood magic is heavily arcane with void and light - emphasiszing the silver, purple/blue.

I think game class choices having night elves for a long time the only race you could pick druids on the alliance has somewhat skewed the perception strongly towards druids, that perception was much weaker in WC3, where they were mostly perceived as female warrior priests and huntresses called sentinels. Fast forward to Legion, and if you played that expansion first, you see a much broader and balanced presentation of night elves - from the arcane through Suramar and Azsuna and their sub-race groups (nightborne, Fraondis, Moonguard), to nature in Val'sharah (druids mainly, but a priest temple), Female combatant Wardens all over, and ofc Demon hunters, who while having blood elves, has a distinctly and noticeably stronger night elf identity throughout all of its presentations, cinematics and story etc. From legion, you would view the night elves as a suitably varied group and not just druids, with a rich and varied history too, and not just "only forests about them"

But that's my many cents.

[Dellis0991]

I would love Highborne, is that confirmed? Night Elves badly need that kick in the pants to make them interesting. Night Warrior was a step in the right direction, but if customization is Shadowlands' theme, give all the OG races as much as possible.

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Watch me have the luck where you manage to even guess my realm.

You win this time, but I'll be back!

[ravenmoon]

@Razion One of my biggest arguing points with the handling of night elves so far is that the failure to include more of their arcane lore in the present playable faction has made the night elves rather boring because traditional fantasy lovers, and elf tropes love high magical cities as much as they do forests. In the blood elves they gave them both with Eversong and the Ghostlands, then Silvermoon.

But with the night elves they only gave the forest bit , it wasn't till legion that they took the tiem to give a night elf city that matched the lore books and narratives in description as was clearly seen in Suramar and temples also as clearly seen in the Cathedral of Eternal night.


Without that part of the night elves being clearly visible, they've been far less popular amongst the very players that love elves and what that fantasy brings (beautiful aesthetics and magic). so they gave everything to the blood elves, and effecitvely crippled the night elves showing only one half for far too long. By the time we see the second half properly (i.e. the arcane and Suramar), the impression of night elvs is set, it odens't help with understanding that its citizen the nightborne are given a different name and adjusted aesthetics, and while anyone who pays attention to the lore should see them as a side of the kaldorei, I have found out that a lot of people don't, because night elf almost always depicts a forest dwelling elf to them because 14 years of levelling in forest and ruins with little more to the night elf race presentation till legion leaves an impression, andonly the lore nerds who account all the history and some of the more attentive players would have a different perspective.

Gamers are informed far more by what they see than what they read.

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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

I did do a Legolas hunter intentional, man, the abuse I got and teh rage from others, was really funny, I realised certain names actually do trigger people, I found it hilarious though, it would be another 10 years before I finally rolled a blood elf hunter seriously. Ofc I didn't call him Legolas.

[Malacrass]

When it concerns WoW it's a mix of a lot of things.

- Strong Racial
- The models had a much better quality than the OG models back then (I still believe that they look even better than the revamp, at least in stillshots and while running)
- The only option to play a regular sized humanoid (a better fit for caster classes)
- The Blood Elves / Night Elves were totally badass factions in Warcraft 3 and Frozen throne, especially the latter (and Belfs had Kael as a super likeable hero)
- The starting zone was outstanding for the time. And once you played throught that it's likely that you just kept going.
- Class restrictions. The only Paladins for the longest time - and the alternative that came years later was a holy meme cow and then Trolls. I like Tauren, I love Trolls, but come the fuck on.
- I guess E-rp is a thing, but I doubt that's the reason for even 1% of the players.

[Outer Heaven]

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???

The female Blood Elf and Void Elf models are the most attractive player models in the game.

[Sithalos]

It's a combination of aesthetics and them being one of the better horde races for PvE, M+ specifically.