What's the bigger factor, that elves are pretty? Or that they're persistent?

[Soon-TM]

Well Elves are the favourite of the players while tauren always have been a rather niche race.

Of course Blizz focuses more on them.

I still think that Dwarves, Worgen or DS trolls definitely need more love. Right now, it's Humans, Humans and more Humans, with the occasional Orc or nelf here and there. The big exception was Sylvanas, but her character has been butchered so badly that she isn't worth discussing anymore (imo).

[VinceVega]

I still think that Dwarves, Worgen or DS trolls definitely need more love. Right now, it's Humans, Humans and more Humans, with the occasional Orc or nelf here and there. The big exception was Sylvanas, but her character has been butchered so badly that she isn't worth discussing anymore (imo).

Opinion. I think everything they have done with Sylvannas is wuite in character. But that is Offtopic.

Worgen get story via Genn and Dwarvey via Magni. That is the way wow tells the story of the races. Via their leaders.
There is not that much human story in BfA. Unless you count Kul Tirans. But then the story on Horde side was nearly exklusiv Trolls ingame. Not that much orcs.

People tend to ignore what is happening ingame in favour what they see in the cinematics. The cinematics are not the game. They tell a story difficult to show ingame

[Skytotem]

I actually view this as the opposite. Before blood elves, Horde population was dying. The game might have even gone away because it was trending towards a one faction imbalance. Blood elves saved the Horde, and thus Blizzard put the focus/money/energy into that one race. It was what the players wanted to play, so Blizzard responded to that.

The Horde population being low wasn't JUST due to having 'ugly' races though it was also due to their cities/towns having a lot less conveniences and their leveling zones being rougher/less polished in vanilla. (Org and Thunderbluff were literally just copy-pasted assets originally, with Org's original central tower just being two towers stuck on top of each other, compare to IF and SW)

Many of those issues have been addressed over the years now.

[Syegfryed]

It's the Tolkien effect..

we can close the topic, i would just add that its more or less the Peter Jackson effect too

the most generic and cliche race of all, always the same stuff in a different "light", wow tried to do different with blood elves, in a good way, but they went back, about the nightborne, i would rather get the manacrack version of then

what rly screw the elves is the playerbase/fanbase, they are the worst, thinking they are the best and above every other race with the elf kink of being "the best and perfect and everything", since there are a lot of then they parrot to get more and more attention, so blizzard have to attend to this loudly playerbase.

[Loveliest]

They're pretty. And some classes limited to certain races (original horde pala, dh).

[Amsden]

With the love Humans and Orcs get you'd be forgiven for forgetting any other races even existed. I'd say Belfs are pretty on par with the other minor races when it comes to development.

[Soon-TM]

the elf kink of being "the best and perfect and everything".

The funny part is that Warcraft elves are (or were) far from being the pretty Mary Sue's so common in other fantasy media. Nelfs may have been good bois/gurls, but that didn't prevent them from being a terribly backwards, theocratic society, which had to be bailed out by third parties in the two of the most critical events in their history (WotA and Third War) - not to speak how they were the Horde punching bag in Cata, and now in BfA.

As for belfs, they were the typical arrogant, aloof folks one would expect, but they really didn't give a !@#$ about the Old Alliance, and got the !@#$ out of it as soon as they could. Which eventually came to bite them in the ass, their lands laid waste by the Scourge, including their capital and their precious Sunwell.

Not counting NB and VEs here, because they are basically belfs 2.0 and a lore abomination respectively. But still, elves in Warcraft are far from being perfect, whether it comes to society or to military matters. Yes, you have a few uber cringey posters (especially pro nelf), but I doubt Blizz writes the story with them in mind.

[Syegfryed]

The funny part is that Warcraft elves are (or were) far from being the pretty Mary Sue's so common in other fantasy media. Nelfs may have been good bois/gurls, but that didn't prevent them from being a terribly backwards, theocratic society, which had to be bailed out by third parties in the two of the most critical events in their history (WotA and Third War) - not to speak how they were the Horde punching bag in Cata, and now in BfA.

As for belfs, they were the typical arrogant, aloof folks one would expect, but they really didn't give a !@#$ about the Old Alliance, and got the !@#$ out of it as soon as they could. Which eventually came to bite them in the ass, their lands laid waste by the Scourge, including their capital and their precious Sunwell.

Not counting NB and VEs here, because they are basically belfs 2.0 and a lore abomination respectively. But still, elves in Warcraft are far from being perfect, whether it comes to society or to military matters. Yes, you have a few uber cringey posters (especially pro nelf), but I doubt Blizz writes the story with them in mind.

Like i said, the big problem is the fanbase, they are the obnoxious, they think the elves are perfect, they shaped the elves in what we have today, in this lame copy-paste of tolkien with the holier-than-thou attitude, shit ton of headcanon and fanfiction that you can find real close from here.

nelfs were very racist and bigots in WC3, they were savage and less civilized with a thematic much more oriented to druidism and wood elves thing, now we have "this"

Blood elves like you said, arrogant, egocentric, and in the frozen throne they had to get out of the pedestal and use the shoes of humility, but today, the players and blizzard just revert back their narrative in what we have today.

Some Blizzard writers like the elves too(cofcofDanousercofcof), so they create lore to pamper this fanbase, because they are numerous, they think they deserve everything and better.

[Soon-TM]

Opinion. I think everything they have done with Sylvannas is wuite in character. But that is Offtopic.

Worgen get story via Genn and Dwarvey via Magni. That is the way wow tells the story of the races. Via their leaders.
There is not that much human story in BfA. Unless you count Kul Tirans. But then the story on Horde side was nearly exklusiv Trolls ingame. Not that much orcs.

People tend to ignore what is happening ingame in favour what they see in the cinematics. The cinematics are not the game. They tell a story difficult to show ingame

Genn has got ZERO story, aside from being angry with Sylvanas. Oh, and the bit about lending a hand to nelfs in Darkshore, if we are feeling generous... even if that plotline went nowhere. As a matter of fact, more often than not Genn has been used to prop up Sylvanas, rather than to develop Genn himself.

And Magni? WTF...? You mean the MV scenario, where he acts and speaks the same than his brother Indiana Jones Brann? That doesn't develop Dwarves in the slightest, least of all when Magni is a neutral character since Legion.

[Powerogue]

I mean I'd argue orcs > elves > forsaken as of this expansion in particular > tauren as the main focal points of the Horde narratively speaking.



Here's something from this expansion. Only elf talking is Sylvanas, and she's more of a forsaken character.

If we want to point at Horde races given disproportionate representation, when's the last time you saw a pandaren?

[Aresk]

At first I thought this was an elf thread; I was a little disappointed to see it was strictly blood elves. While I agree that blood elves do have a lot of small arcs, I think part of that is the fact that they're the most "human" of the Horde races. While I have no trouble relating to an orc or tauren (or even the Darkspear after Reforged added their origin back to the campaign), I know several people who had a much harder time with that. I don't think it's so much as pretty as the fact that they can be related to. It's one of the reasons that humans pretty much do everything of note in the Star Wars movies; they're what the audience relates to easiest. Personally I've not known anyone who has swapped to playing a blood elf because they saw how much lore they were getting, but that would be anecdotal evidence regardless.

I actually view this as the opposite. Before blood elves, Horde population was dying.

I've heard this statistic but never seen any actual numbers for it. Do you have a link to some source data? I'm not accusing you of making things up; I'm just really interested in seeing the actual data.

[AsgardBY99]

Damn , someone I can agree with. I'm just so tired of seeing elves, elves, elves absolutely everywhere, whereas other races get nearly ignored. D&D's elves are *at least* a bit better.

And trolls, up until Cata/BfA, were practically just an 'enemy race' until the Zandalari were expanded on a bit more

The top species of any environment is very homogeneous, just as there are no longer any species with higher IQs above humans at present, the same is true of World of Warcraft, where the strongest will always eliminate the weakest, and whoever is strong holds the highest right to survive.

- - - Updated - - -

The tribes are better than the alliance whether it's transportation or quests or copies, and pvp is also better for the tribes, which is what leads to the tribal population crushing the alliance after adding blood elves again.

- - - Updated - - -

The funny part is that Warcraft elves are (or were) far from being the pretty Mary Sue's so common in other fantasy media. Nelfs may have been good bois/gurls, but that didn't prevent them from being a terribly backwards, theocratic society, which had to be bailed out by third parties in the two of the most critical events in their history (WotA and Third War) - not to speak how they were the Horde punching bag in Cata, and now in BfA.

As for belfs, they were the typical arrogant, aloof folks one would expect, but they really didn't give a !@#$ about the Old Alliance, and got the !@#$ out of it as soon as they could. Which eventually came to bite them in the ass, their lands laid waste by the Scourge, including their capital and their precious Sunwell.

Not counting NB and VEs here, because they are basically belfs 2.0 and a lore abomination respectively. But still, elves in Warcraft are far from being perfect, whether it comes to society or to military matters. Yes, you have a few uber cringey posters (especially pro nelf), but I doubt Blizz writes the story with them in mind.

The Night Elves in Warcraft 3 are not a declining race, it's just that World of Warcraft weakened them in order to highlight other races and make both sides more reasonable, you have to understand that in the worldview of Warcraft 3, the Night Elves are the equal race with the Alliance and the Orcs and the undead legions of Alsace, however in Warcraft turned into a vassal of the Alliance, this is the gameplay backwards.

[peacekeeperman]

Blizz focuses more on them because they are favored by players, I think so

[Stardrift]

Look at the amount of users on this website that have elf avatars and searches for threads with "elf" in the title so that they may create 1-2 pages worth of arguments against those that mention wanting more attention towards other races, or spew on about how high elves should be playable races.

People have this weird ass obsession with the "fair skinned, delicate, long-haired, dagger-eared snobs" fantasy. A borderline fetish, if you ask me. It's fucking weird.

[Vlaid]

Elves are pretty good in WoW. Especially since there is so much writing for them. I kinda hate how some races just get forgotten completely. What did Mag'har orcs do after appearing early on? Even their initial appearance was lackluster. If you're not a human, elf or orc (green orc) you're probably not going to see the race get any "real" attention in WoW.

I do think that's a big part of why elves are so popular.

[melodramocracy]

In game reasons: they can be the widest range of classes (last I checked), most armor looks good on them (well, Nightborne not so much), and they scale better than any other race when using ground or flying mounts.

Lore reasons: they have incredibly strong ties to novels that predate WoW, and have a commonality with humans that makes them extremely relatable, so theyre a staple in the majority of fantasy games.

[Maljinwo]

In game reasons: they can be the widest range of classes (last I checked), most armor looks good on them (well, Nightborne not so much), and they scale better than any other race when using ground or flying mounts.

Dwarves and Trolls are actually the ones with the widest range of classes. Not counting Demon Hunters:

Dwarves can be every class but Druid
Trolls can be every class but Paladin

[Cosmic Janitor]

They look good in armor and have decent enough animations. That is really all there is to it for me. I played forsaken for years but I just couldn't stand it anymore that I always was hunched over and my gear was missing pieces. Same for beast races. Boots are one of the few items with proper plastic models and if you have hoves you lose that part of the visual fidelity, not to mention the hunchback-snout isssues of tauren/worgen that makes helms look like shit.

[Syegfryed]

In game reasons: they can be the widest range of classes (last I checked), most armor looks good on them (well, Nightborne not so much), and they scale better than any other race when using ground or flying mounts.

like already mentioned, no, trolls and dwarves have more if you don't count DH because it is a locked class.

this thing of armor looking good and whatever is totally subjective, elves in plate by example look garbage to me.

Lore reasons: they have incredibly strong ties to novels that predate WoW, and have a commonality with humans that makes them extremely relatable, so theyre a staple in the majority of fantasy games.

they don't have that much, the only "strong tie" is the war of ancient trilogy, and that is night elf only.

And in wow they definitely have less commonality with humans than the generic elves out there. For the record, they are liked not because they have common things ad are "relatable" is because elves are supposed to be better humans or humans with no flaws.

[T-34]

Just look at the High Elf-thread here. It has more than 1000 pages.
Just as the competitive players are a minority so are those players for whom lore, consistent story-telling etc are paramount.
The majority want to look cool, pretty or badass, or all three at once while slaying dragons. And lore, story, balance, competitiveness are not a priority for those players. It is what it is and Blizzard knows that better than anyone.