Reasons for Warcrafts low dwarven popularity?

[Marrilaife]

Not gonna read 5 pages of probably the same arguments, so bet someone already pointed it out, but people have aversion to races that even remotely look "fat". Imo Dwarves don't look "fat", they look tough and stocky, but they're completely opposite of the "lean" races like Elves or Forsaken that are popular.

Every time there's a discussion about Dwarves, Pandas or Kul Tirans it always ends up as "eww fat".

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Because most players are stupid and want to play a "good-looking" character, even in a video game...

How is it stupid? Someone said in the discussion about Mechagnomes on wowhead that people would play a walking turd if it had OP racials, that's what sounds stupid to me. Unfortunately it's probably true.

[Athredas]

Warcraft Dwarves have no identity, nothing that would set them apart. They are just short humans.

[Trassk]

They
Are
Ugly

Actually their model updates is one of the better ones along with tauren.

[Great Destiny Man]

Female dwarves aren't dwarfy enough, they need beards. Fix that and we can play the race as intended.

[Trassk]

Warcraft Dwarves have no identity, nothing that would set them apart. They are just short humans.

Beg to differ. Humans lives above ground in castles while dwarves live below ground in vast underground cities. Dwarves are connected to earthen as builders and constructors while humans are connected to vrykul which were just fleshified stone version were just warriors. Dwarves have a connection to the elemental lords like ragnaros, humans don't really have a connection to an entity except 'the light' which unlike the draeneis narru has no face to it.

Dwarves stand on their own with decent enough lore.

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Female dwarves aren't dwarfy enough, they need beards. Fix that and we can play the race as intended.

Your thinking of the wrong game

[Great Destiny Man]

Your thinking of the wrong game

Any minute you might hear the whooshing noise.

[Lucrece]

Warcraft dwarves are hideous, the males in particular have faces that look like 80 year old scrotums with potato noses. 80% of their hairstyles are balding, like human males.

In warcraft, anything that is not an elf follows the rule of male = 40-50 year old, female = 25. And even then night elves fall to this design paradigm too.

[Mad_Murdock]

Thank you, ugh. I hate racials so much. People should be able to play the race they want to play, not the race their raid makes them feel obligated to play.

Convince me first that the majority of players play their race because of racials. Sure if I have to choose between 2 races I really like, I'll pick one that has the racial I like most. But I don't believe that majority of players play a race because a spreadsheet told them what race had the best racial.

I vote low dwarf pop, because they are an insulting stereotype and like gnomes, who wants to play a short race?

[Trassk]

Warcraft dwarves are hideous, the males in particular have faces that look like 80 year old scrotums with potato noses. 80% of their hairstyles are balding, like human males.

In warcraft, anything that is not an elf follows the rule of male = 40-50 year old, female = 25. And even then night elves fall to this design paradigm too.

Better characters looking like they've been through a few wars then looking like vogue girl supermodels

[Shadowsgrace]

They had no caster classes before Cataclysm.

Dwarves, no Caster classes? you do know in Vanilla, Dwarves were almost (I do stress almost) mandatory for Priest on alliance. They were the only one to have "Fear ward" which trivialized many boss fight mechanics, if your tank wasn't running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Back in Vanilla, only Dwarf Priests had Fear ward, and only became available to all priests in TBC.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

I wonder if it's perhaps because players who might normally enjoy dwarves tend more towards playing Horde? As a Horde main I know that Dwarf is the only Alliance race that really interests me.

[lockybalboa]

People don't generally like to play a short and ugly race, it's not rocket science.

[Nightstalker]

WoW is turning more and more into 2nd life. People just want to look pretty/awesome. Has very little to do with fantasy or RPG.

[Jastall]

-A good amount of gear looks bad on them.

-Close to 0 story focus at all.

-Most importantly, they aren't Elves or Humans who are played by like 70% of players if you add them together. People prefer those races for aesthetic purposes.

[Wyrt]

Because they're ugly and there's nothing unique about WoW dwarves. They're probably the most generic race in the entire game after humans. Just the generic bearded, vaguely scottish, miners they are in every fantasy setting.

[Laqweeta]

I absolutely love the Dwarves as a race.

Out of all races, their lore interests me the most.

[Veelaru]

I don't give a damn about racials and just enjoy playing dwarf hunter and Dark Iron dwarf priestess because they look cool as hell. Also, as it seems to me, you underestimate the popularity of dwarves. People should worry about the low popularity of gnomes, not dwarves.

Maybe, the main problem with gnomes that they have not a clearly represented race-class combination. If we think about Undeads, we imagine them as rogues or warlocks, humans - as warriors, paladins, or mages, orcs - as warriors or shamans. Still, when you hear "gnome," there is no such a clear association even though there is plenty of gnome warlocks, mages, or rogues. So, that's yet another reason why we need tinkers

[therealstegblob]

Remove racials and you will get a much more diverse set of races in the world.

While some racials are better than others, People will still pick one race over another.

Remove them and people will go with what they think looks the best.

People already go with what they think looks best. Only a very small percentage of overall players are picking races for racial specific reasons, lol.

[mickybrighteyes]

Any idea or thoughts why this is the case for Warcraft?

First issue is racials. Second is most armor/gear looks better on things closer to the shape of the generic human.... (almost every set is modeled on humans first and then fucked with to fit everyone else).

Outside of having the best beards, I don't think dwarves really stand out as much.

If you include Dark Irons as well? Not sure. I think there's still an issue where they have some of the same issues as normal dwarves... but better beards

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People already go with what they think looks best. Only a very small percentage of overall players are picking races for racial specific reasons, lol.

I think that human racial rep grind boost still plays a large factor in some players choices.

Overall though it's not as bad as classic where weapon specc racials could really seal some class/specc builds.

[Raelyn]

I read the title as in "WoW isn't popular with dwarves", not "Dwarves aren't a popular race to play in WoW".

I'm a little disappointed I was wrong.