Favourite races (from all WoW races, not only playable)?

[Blufossa]

Gnolls (redone, not the current abomination models)
Worgen
Tauren (when redone)

I love big fuzzy animal people races. And no, I'm not a damn furry.

[Feral Camel]

Goblins & Dwarves are my 2 personal favourites.

[Zulkhan]

Oops, i completely forgot about this.

You didn't hurt my night elven heart lol. I just stated my view on the issue too. If I sounded annoyed or anything, my apologies, I wasn't in truth, was just trying to explain my view as clear as possible.

I'll be honest, i read it in the most "annoying" way and sounded a bit like that, but well, we're in a forum writing things and not talking, so it's impossible give "tone" to what we "say". Add it that the bastardy is strong in me, and well, no need of apoligies...lol

Overall, the problem of night elves is not that they're arrogant, but rather that they can't understand the traditions and the views of life of other races. They only had contact with furbolgs, dryads/keepers and tauren for the last 10k years. Furbolgs learned and accepted some teachings, dryads/keepers were the ones telling their own teachings to night elves (making the night elves feel everyone teaching everyone was something normal) and tauren mostly learned some things. Also remember that besides furbolg, dryads/keepers are also immortal while tauren live 300 or so years or so, can't remember exactly. Now they suddenly needed to adapt to short lived races... this doesn't happen overnight. So, I feel that for night elves this is more with not letting go of traditions and adapting to new realities easily (remember the quest in Ashenvale at Stardust Spire with that gnome having to convince the night elf commander cannons can be useful?).

Yeah night elves represent a strange mix of "placid nobility" and "primitive savagery", with all that this entail. Still, this cannot change that arrogance and inflexibility are very strong traits in them.

Just look at the Tauren. Yeah, they forgot during years their druidic arts and needed Malfurion for "reignite" them, still they had a very precise way of life, they didn't never had the slightest desire of using arcane magic, instead they had an innate, deep connection with the "Earth Mother", a kind of connection Night Elves don't have, reason for which Tauren can learn and master Shamanism and the elves not.
As the elves, they were "overwhelmed" by these new races coming from other continents and even other worlds, and their "wider" vision of the world, combined with the fact that their race predate even the Titans, make them see most of these races as "children", like the elves. Yeah, the Tauren don't have the lifespans of the elves, still don't have this great importance, things learned by a race can be handed down aswell by parents to sons and daughters, simply this "transmittion" happen more often when lifespans are shorter; and if we consider that tauren are more ancient as a race of the night elves themselves, they can be hardly considered an inexeperienced race, in fact they have a great knowledge of the world in which they live, and have a precise way of life, like the elves.

But, instead of being close-minded and reclusive, tauren are a lot more open in every aspect. In WC3, when the orcs showed themselves in the shores of Kalimdor, the tauren didn't hide behind some rock, watching them CAREFULLY and waiting for every suspicious move for justify a brutal attack. They went to them with no problems at all, with Cairne admiring the orcs's prowess in battle.
On the other hand as Tyrande saw orcs and humans alike cutting trees in the borders of Ashenvale, she just went with something like "WTF they are invading our "sacred" forest, they must be all EXTERMINATED!". And they did it, god damn, they slaughtered orcs and humans alike. Seriously, there are no excuses for justify such a hot and aggressive temper, if not some kind of compulsive fear of the "threats" to their way of life and an over-reclusive attitude.

In terms of magic, they did not really. High elves and blood elves became drug addicts addicted to arcane, and later the blood elves to fel magic. As for the other races, most of them haven't used arcane and fel for that long. Remember arcane was shared by the high elves to the humans. Dwarves still used their rune magics for a long time etc.
There is only one race that has used arcane magic for a long time and did not get corrupted, and this is draenei. I have no clue how they did it as Blizzard doesn't expand this. For the rest, it either made them addicts or the effect hasn't had time to settle in (remember, Highbourne during the War of the Ancients weren't addicted to the Well's powers, they needed it for bigger spells, but didn't feel like they're dying when they didn't have it to the point of turning into those wretched like the ones at the border of Eastern Plaguelands and Quel'thalas.
As for fel, it's even more corrupting then arcane! Look at blood elves, they've been using it for what, a few years, and already their eyes turned green, and this to the ones that didn't use it as much, for the others look at felblood elves.
Look at orcs, even those in close contact with the warlocks turned green and now, even after no longer using fel, they have not reverted. Fel corrupts everyone, and while arcane corrupts in time, fel corrupts almost instantly.

Sorry but there is a lot of mess up here.

First, the Highbourne WERE addicted, but the source of their addiction was all there. Like for the Sunwell, they didn't need to keep their asses there, the existance of the Well alone was enough for sate their lust of magic, no matter where they were.
The Highbourne so didn't experience the pain of the addiction because they never lose the source for sate it, when this happened they were lost in the deep sea and then turned into Nagas by the Old Gods, so i guess that something drastically changed in them, since they weren't even Night Elves anymore.
But the rest of the Highborne that remained in the surface (the High Elves), ofcourse experienced the addiction problem, since the Well was destroyed and lost forever, reason for which they needed to create the Sunwell in the Eastern Kingdoms.

Arcane magic don't bring automatically addictive or corrupting problems, is the excessive and overly-dependent use of it that cause the addiction and the corruption. And both Highborne and High Elves builded reigns and empires around magic, and the Highborne were those who did the worst, which basically condemned the rest of their arcane-using kind, the High Elves, to their irrevocabily addiction, an addiction that they will NEVER be able to erase or submit, only sate it (like any High/Blood Elf is doing actually with the new Sunwell reignited in TBC).
The wretched in Silvermoon are those that were too weak-willed for control their devouring addiction and hunger of magic, something that proved more difficult to do with the "seductive" fel magic, and so became completely corrupted by it. This is what happened to Kael'thas and the Felbloods aswell.

For this, instead, the draenei have zero problems in using arcane magic after thousand of years as they want, with no corruption or addiction, because it is NOT long exposure or usage of arcane that corrupts an individual, is the inability of control it. And in fact, this is what any warlock trainer will say to you while playing a warlock:

"The arcane corrupts only those who are weak. Keep on your training if you don't want to meet a similar fate".

and, of course, more magic you abuse, more "strenght"(mind's one), knowledge or training you would need to control it; too bad that the Highborne didn't even bothered to care about the word "control", while all the nowdays races are doing their best for control their powers and themselves; the Highborne instead just sucked arcane from the Well. End of the story. And this reckless use of magic and abuse of an abundant source of it like the Well of Eternity was, condemned their brethren in Quel'thalas to their eternal addiction.

The humans and the gnomes, for example, learned the arcane by the high elves indeed, still, while they liked their new tricks, the usage they made of it was not excessive or abundant, at least not at the same level of the Highborne. The draenei used arcane for thousand of years aswell because, while skilled, they weren't dependent by it like the Highborne were; and the Zandalari too has been able to combine their shadow magic with arcane, developing powers that, like a blood elf state in the Isle of Thunder, have "thousand years of history", so powerful that even the blood elves, the great masters of the arcane, respect and even fear.
But the Zandalari aren't addicted to anything, simply because they didn't shape all their society around arcane magic, sucking it by some kind of "magic well", nor they were corrupted despite using it for thousand of years.

About fel magic, the blood elves and orcs examples are not examples of corruption, but just physical marks of fel exposure, which is different. Kael'thas and his Felbloods became corrupted, because they gave themselves willingly to corruption, since they fell prey of their growing addiction. The blood elves in Quel'thalas have green eyes, but are not corrupted at all, they didn't forsake their will and mind to fel magic, they remained themselves, the green eyes are nothing more than a prove that they, at some point, used fel magic. Also, orcs and elves are just particular examples of races that recieve long-waning physical marks by the exposure to fel magic, which is not a common theme to all races.

though to be honest, the night elves now aren't really the ones that brought down the troll empires.

Well, you're right indeed. But old hatreds die hard, this happen in our world very easily and very often, and in the Warcraft universe is just a constant variable.
The Gurubashi and any other jungle tribe had an infinite amount of troubles because of the night elves destroying their empire, which combined with all the events of the Sundering, these has been the main reasons for all the shit happened with Hakkar.
On the other hand, the Amani had little problems, until...a bunch of exiled elves came from nowhere pretending to eat lands that didn't belong to them, pushing the trolls back with the same arcane tricks that made them mad years before. I think it's obvious that the common troll don't give a fuck about night, high or blood elves, i think that they just despise the word "elf" in general. And the typical irritating behavior of the average Night/High Elf don't help AT ALL.

Well, to be honest, since draenei were not known then, night elves were the only ones with any experience in arcane magic. They saw it corrupted and destroyed so they banned it. Yet they left the Highbourne to continue practicing some of it for 3000 more years (yes, minor spells, but still) until the Highbourne made a giant storm that almost destroyed Ashenvale because they couldn't control it (if they could, it was only worse). This only further cemented the idea that arcane is bad in the minds of regular night elves. So then yes, they exiled the high elves since they knew they had two choices, keep them there and them conjuring more storms and such, risking the destruction of all kaldorei, killing them or sending them away where they can destroy themselves. It's kind of a hard choice fully from all sides.

Experience doesn't always mean knowledge. And those with knowledge (and still, a pretty raw one) were the remaining Highborne, and Illidan ofcourse, those who wielded the arcane in their hands, something that Malfurion never did, same for Tyrande. They still don't have any decent grasp of this kind of magic nowdays. For this they didn't even know of the addiction of their brethren. And, honestly, i think you twisted a bit the mess about the storm and the rest.

I don't belive that Malfurion and his druids allowed the remaining Highborne to use any kind of magic, i think instead that they outlawed completely the usage, with even the threat of a death execution. Anyway the Highborne remained good with it...for a while. But dear Malfurion didn't consider much the addiction that his brethren had developed, and for this they couldn't bear his politics anymore and rebelled against the rest of the night elves. And i'm pretty sure that the arcane storm was intended and perfectly controlled, since was an attempt of rebellion against the druids's iron law.
Scared by this manifestation of power that put in danger their precious forest, plus the "stubborness" of the future High Elves in their "need" of magic, Malfurion was horrified at the thought of killing all of them, and so just hand-waved the problem by sending them who knows where; and while the High Elves were happy and ok with this (free to use their beloved magic finally) the whole decision has been extremely reckless, they just send them away for avoid personal problems, without taking in consideration the future consquences (and yeah, this decision definetely HAD consequences).
No doubts was a hard choice, at this point...but their complete ignorance brought this situation, they didn't understand the whole addictive problem, deluding themselves that the menace of a death execution could keep them quite for eternity; and the fact that ANY slight usage of arcane deserved a death execution is the blatant prove of how freaking ignorant they were about it; if they would have let the Highborne use a discrete amount of magic, the addiction would have been sated, and no horrible event would have happened.
But they completely ignored this, and for this the night elves (and their druids, specifically) took extreme countermeasures based on fear and ignorance, which brought to the exile of the High Elves, since the druids, following their own law, should have kill almost all of them, since their united partecipation at the powerful storm unleashed in Ashenvale. But they hande-waved both the problems (the fear of arcane magic and the questionable act of slaughter so much of their brethren) by just sending them...away. And then what will happen will happen. Damn, if this is not recklessness, i don't know which is.

you forgat about the giant storm the Highbourne conjured that almost destroyed Ashenvale. This showed the night elves the Highbourne couldn't control the magic.

The giant storm has been the extreme act perpetrated by the Highbourne, which didn't prove incapacity of control arcane magic (they were perfectly able) but much more how the night elves politics has been awful.

No, he didn't. Alextrazsa, Nozdormu, Malygos and Ysera gave them the gifts of immortality, resistance to diseases, power to visit the Emerald Dream and a few other things. And they did that so they could protect the new Well so that the Legion wouldn't get to it. How can I explain, this had some major setbacks for the night elves so it wasn't such an awesome deal. I mean think about it, many of the males (and a few females) had to lay in the Emerald Dream, away from their loved ones because of it. The remaining ones had to take care of their bodies and Nordrassil, meaning they couldn't go very far, so their "country" couldn't extend more then around Mount Hyjal and surrounding areas. So the women (and few men) sit there alone fighting Legion remnants while their loved ones are sleeping in another dimension for hundreads of years at at a time. This doesn't seem like a very good deal to me.
And to think that if Illidan had not created the Well, even if, yes, night elves would have died around 750-1000 years as they probably will now and they might have gotten some diseases too, they'd have been able to cherish their shorter lives with their loved ones, not have to sit for hundreads of years alone in the "Eternal Vigil" as Tyrande I remember said.

Ofcourse i never meant that Illidan himself or his Well gave the immortality to the Night Elves, but has been the very base, without it, no immortality, because no one would have give a fuck about give to the night elves this powerful trait, which anyway became tied to the fate of Nordrassil.
Yeah the "Eternal Vigil" was a huge collateral effect, still not so many night elves were so bothered about it, probably many thought that the perspective of eternal life was great enough for accept the bargain. And the fact that after the huge damaging of Nordrassil (with the loss of immortality) many druids, with Fandral leading, created Teldrassil with the sole purpose of...being immortal, and just be proud of it, is a decent prove; and the reason for which the whole thing didn't work ofcourse was because there was nothing more than a selfish desire of eternal life.

I love this part, must admit I started laughing at the last part xD
In a way you're right. The problem is not that Illidan helped them, but how he did it, you know that saying "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions"? That's kind of what Illidan did. He tried to impress Tyrande and get power. While his intentions were good, the way in which he acomplished them were not, and most of his doings ended hurting everyone more. I gave the example of War of the Ancients and him also hitting his forces on the field with the magic, but I'll give you another example, the Lich King and trying to melt the icecap. This would have flooded a lot of zones, killing countless from all races. Yet Illidan thought it was a good idea... not sure I agree.
They were judging of him, that is true, maybe too much. As I said, sending him in exile after 3000 years in jail would have been much better. That said, remember that the first time Malfurion saw Illidan's new demon form, he asked this "foul demon" what has he done with his brother. So he did care, and only when hearing that Illidan sold his soul to the devil did he feel anger, because his brother would now forever be lost and under control from a demonic artifact.

That's my view anyway.

He did questionable things during the War of the Ancients, and i didn't say that he would have deserved a full pardon; but not even acting like everything he did was worthless, horrible shit, because they were horrified by the kind of powers he has been able to achieve, they completely ignored anything else. He wasn't upset because they didn't recognize his awesome powers (well, just a bit maybe, but that was not the main reason, really) but because they always acted like as all the world-saving was 100% their doing, with a lot of night elves taking much more merit and looking at Illidan as "The Betrayer", while in fact many of these night elves had a tiny part in it, compared to Illidan.

For this he felt "betrayed" by his people, because he has always been punished, while a good part of his people were pumping their pride for all these victories, looking at him like a betrayer, a disgusting "lesser" being that dabbled himself in dark magics.
About Malfurion i don't think he knew much about the Skull of Gul'dan and its powers, when he saw the "foul demon" i don't think he initially reliazed that the demon was his brother (so the question was much like "Where is my brother? What have you done to him, demon?") but when he understood that the demon was Illidan, he just became horrified by this.

I would say, this time the night elves had some better reason for have some kind of "disgust", but they do it always in a..."lovable" manner, and by Illidan's point of view, that already suffered their bigotry with an imprisonment of some "few" thousand of years, was like the last straw, he saw his efforts hand-waved again like shit, and this has been the point in which he completely forsake his brother and his people, all for what he cared at this point was Tyrande alone, like the Frozen Throne campaign showed, but basically cursed all the rest and began to follow his darker path, with no care for his people anymore, he just focused his care to power, and power alone.
For this he had little problems in killing fellow elves at this point, he just followed the will of his new master (Kil'jaeden) by doing his bidding, since he was able to sate his hunger of magic. This indeed has been the beginning of his descending path until TBC.

And yeah, the whole idea of sinking a continent for destroy the Lich King was extreme and not-caring, still the night elves in general aren't that caring aswell for the fate of the other races; it's just the druids (and the rest of their people following their view like some kind of dogma) caring about balance in nature and preservation of it, and the whole "Northrend-sinking" was against all of it. But Illidan was not a druid after all, nor he shared any sympathy for the night elves's new ideals.

In the end, Illidan is born and grown in the wrong society, and didn't have a lot of luck aswell, with any kind of evil bastard exploiting his weak point (his power-hungry addiction), but his path to Hell has been "helped" a lot by the extreme inflexibility of the night elf's society aswell.

I have to say, keeping all those there for 10k years made them all mad. Heck, even the bear druids had lost themselves and Malfurion barely woke them up.

Well, yeah, is horrible. I mean, just imagine in which bad state is the mind of someone sent in some isolation cell for a month. Multiple it to 10.000 years. Oh my.

Oh my We're so alike then xD But I dislike all elves and space goats too. xD

Elves are so annoying, and they're more annoying the more you know about them. The only likeable blood elf is Keal'Thas after Ian Beckman's parody.

Well, let's say that i'm "heavily neutral" with the Draenei (no love, no hate, nothing, really) and i "tolerate" the Blood Elves because they have taken a different direction by the common "elf", and at least have a decent lore. But Night/High Elves...well, i simply can't "endure" them...lol

[Al Gorefiend]

In Order:

Dwarf
Human
Goblin
Orc
Troll
Draenei
Gnome
Pandaren
Night Elf
Worgen
Tauren
Undead
Arrakoa
Ogre
Ethereal
Gnoll
Tigon
Kobold
Murloc
Tol'Vir
Faerie Dragon
Nathrezim
Taunka
Valkyr
Sporeloks
Giblins
A Basic Campfire
A rock
Mosquitoes
A stick figure drawing Samwise drew while intoxicated
Blood Elves

[haloa]

Vrykul
Val'kyr
Mok'Nathal

[Zulkhan]

In Order:

Dwarf
Human
Goblin
Orc
Troll
Draenei
Gnome
Pandaren
Night Elf
Worgen
Tauren
Undead
Arrakoa
Ogre
Ethereal
Gnoll
Tigon
Kobold
Murloc
Tol'Vir
Faerie Dragon
Nathrezim
Taunka
Valkyr
Sporeloks
Giblins
A Basic Campfire
A rock
Mosquitoes
A stick figure drawing Samwise drew while intoxicated
Blood Elves

Obviously a blood elf's fanboy

*trollface*

[Worgoblin]

Favorite Current Playable: Worgen

Favorite Non Playable: Sporeling - Mushroom people, how insanely cool is that?!

Runner-up: Jinyu

[PenguinChan]

Playable races? All depends on the class. Generally Blood Elves, Night Elves, and Draenei are my first go to pick. But I enjoy any race except Pandaren, so it's really not that bad.

But non-playable races I enjoy hands down is Naga. Naga all the way, I wanted to play one since Warcraft 3. I love the look and feel to them, and just revel in the lore.

[Dreadnor]

Nathrezim
Valkyr

[Auxis]

Arrakoa and Ethereals.

OH! And lets not forget Saurok.

[Penguintamer]

The Forsaken