Which race is more popular, night elves or blood elves? Which do you prefer, and why?

[Edgysan]

Fascinating, despite the night elven popularity, the vast majority of those who resopnd are the blood elf fans - definitely the more vocal crowd, which means that they are more inspiring. WHich makes sense, they've had the better lore and presentation so far.

wrong assumption, most BE's are BE's because everyone went horde and alliance had less and less players. They are BE because they have to, not because they think they are "more inspiring" than NE.

[Littleraven]

I prefer Night Elves but I feel like Blood Elves are probably the more popular. That said I don't dislike Blood Elves. Actually like them quite a bit.

[Neuroticaine]

I liked the TBC era Blood Elves a lot, and I still like their aesthetic. Night elves never really did anything for me.

[ravenmoon]

wrong assumption, most BE's are BE's because everyone went horde and alliance had less and less players. They are BE because they have to, not because they think they are "more inspiring" than NE.

Interesting point, I have been arguing to long with the old belf crowd it seems. I proposed a simple solution to fix the alliance popularity issues, they are considered too radical by the old Belf guard, and have been arguing against the same 3-5 people since.

It's the simplest,, quickest and most effective solution to solve this alliance problem. But, they'd have to lose some of their shine, and I don't think they like that.. but there isn't another way, sometimes you gotta lose something to make things better.

[Soon-TM]

I liked the TBC era Blood Elves a lot, and I still like their aesthetic. Night elves never really did anything for me.

Same here. WC3 nelfs were cool, although Malfurion and Tyrande really dragged them down. I really digged Maiev in TFT, I found her far more relatable than the other two bores from RoC.

But while I more or less liked nelfs, I felt in love (sort of, lol) with Kael and his stroll across Outland with Vashj and Illidank. And when blood elves were eventually introduced in BC, it was the best moment ever for me

So Blood Elf all the way baby.

[Neuroticaine]

TBC "sinister" blood elves were pretty original. Night elves aren't that novel either, just wood elves with drow skin and hair color.

Yeah I don't see how there's an ounce of originality in Night Elves.

[OwenBurton]

Interesting point, I have been arguing to long with the old belf crowd it seems. I proposed a simple solution to fix the alliance popularity issues, they are considered too radical by the old Belf guard, and have been arguing against the same 3-5 people since.

It's the simplest,, quickest and most effective solution to solve this alliance problem. But, they'd have to lose some of their shine, and I don't think they like that.. but there isn't another way, sometimes you gotta lose something to make things better.

Some felt the void elves would balance the Alliance / Horde popularity in the last expansion -- but in PvP, Alliance was still severely outmatched. What is your solution then?

[ravenmoon]

Some felt the void elves would balance the Alliance / Horde popularity in the last expansion -- but in PvP, Alliance was still severely outmatched. What is your solution then?

I like void elves, they're a cool twist, I much prefer, but I'm honest to admit, my taste is in the minority, and while void elves are niche enough to draw some avid fans, they will never compare to high elves. they just don't have the same pull.

Their introduction was also marred by many alliance players dissatisfied with how lacklustre and slapdash they were introduced, unlike the nightborne (which is weird, we finally get the night elf back story and history section, and it goes horde instead of alliance, following the high elf bulk also going horde in TBC when the blood elves came - naturally alliance fans feel cheated about all this) so it created a bad taste.

Now high elves through stealth would be enough for many "to settle", but Warcraft should never be aiming for settle options, if they do something they should go big, and high elves are one of their most loved assets. The existence of both blood elves and void elves (alternate high elf factions) has not replaced the high elf in the heart of the fans. Topics like this are proof.

Someone in blizzard doesn't realise how central the high elf is to both Warcraft core fans and fantasy fans in general. It's like they fail to realise one of their biggest attractions/selling points, was having the human/high elf/dwarf trio staple in the earlier times- niche players similar to myself may scorn and label "the tired old trope" but that's just because they are so popular, nearly every race in wow is the standard trope (yet the criticism flak goes agianst hte high elves instead of the others - which should tell you something), with multiple factions that have variations on the trope (this includes their sub-races), wow's loved because the favourites from pop fiction universe of fantasy/horror/sci-fi are present in some incarnation, it's like the cooler DnD world where crazy things happen - high elves are a huge asset to have, not to scorn of - why get embarrassed about them, when like human and dwarves every fantasy has them, and your fantasy went one up on all by giving all your races several variations - tot hen cut out the core alliance high elf faction and have it in limbo even now, seems a waste.

[trust me blood elves with the enemies of humans, may have a popularity when they were the only exclusive best model, but it's never sat right with most of both players and fantasy fans, - which is why there is a lot of room for the high elves to rise from the shadows]


It's simple, want the alliance to get excited again, want to inject new excitement into wow, then do high elves properly. You'll ruin the moment if you stealth give them via void elves. I say, don't give any more high elf customisations to void elves, but double down on the void elf theme in the next update, but introduce high elves properly. Make a song and dance about... epic event, The high elves ARE BACK. and use that to also buff the rest of the alliance. The other very popular group are the night elves, we see so little of the Moon Priest side of the order of Elune, they have yet to show off the kaldorei' Highborne and Moonguard on an impressive pre-sundering like scale like they did with Suramar (wand denied them that chance when they took the city horde - which they didn't need to even if the Nightborne got the playable model - they could have had half the city heal back into night elves ), and don't leave void elves out too, they may be a niche faction with the return of the high elves, but they can actually be appreciated even more with the high elves back rather than forgotten.. void elves can play a large role with the night elves - who have that star theme, while they have the deep space void theme, the Highborne connection between the Night elves and the void elves, the Night warrior void magic of the priesthood would be of much interest to the void elves and the druids have an excuse to work with the void elves now, to help the emerald dream defend against the void and utilise the void to aid Azeroths' defences even in the dream. This is a connection on every level with the night elves. void elves can be that half of the high elves that gets on well with the kaldorei and continue to do their thing, while high elves, humans and dwarves finally get their unity.



Bottom line, is that the masses eat this shit up, even if the more avid forum posters and critics sneer at it because it's so mainstream. But it was a part of Warcraft before the LotR movies made such a splash, people who go for fantasy games want that stuff, blizzard are wasting an asset they can use to inject serious excitement into wow.

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Yeah I don't see how there's an ounce of originality in Night Elves.

@kansor Night elves use to be much more than wood elves.. they basically were a combination of what is now Nightborne and the wood elf you consider the Night elf.

The problem was it took till legion to show the dark elf side of the night elves properly, but then they took the sub-race to the horde when popular request for playability was answered, so many people don't even realise that they are seeing the pre-sundering side of the night elves, and the night elf race in wow is a combination of the moon priestesses, the sentinels, the druids, the Moonguard mages, the Highborne arcane caste, the pre-sundering era, the Nightborne, Suramar, the demon hunters, Illidan, the Naga, the satyr etc.

All of that is the night elf fantasy - and with it's moon/star focus, it's unique enough, the problem is because the early focus was just the forest, and not much has been done to show the gamers the other bits - most think they're just forest elves, and I suspect new devs coming in assume so to - it use to be a much bigger race.

Now of all those groups I just pointed out, when you think night elf - druid and forest sentinel hunter is what comes to mind. You don't think Moon Priest, you don't think high civilization Highborne type, or legendary arcane Moonguard battle mage type, nor do you think fierce scarred demon hunter - all the other core parts of the night elves have been spread around a lot, and not enough done to show them shining and belonging on the Night elf faction too and thus you don't associate with Night elf. So you think it's just a boring wood elf with drow skin, and yet the reason for their skin (their arcane birth and arcane well connection - is not even commonly known) - you have to read the novels to know this. If you read gamepedia, you don't get the scale and impact of this, because it's not mentioned much -as fans write gamepedia and will only focus on what they perceive. If I don't go and write a proper piece showing this, it won't be on gamepedia. But the information and the sense of the scope is there in the original material. This happens when it's not brought out in the game, and when you look at night elf game history, it has been massively neglected since it's introduction in Classic, till it got visited in Legion.

But if blizzard don't want to showcase this part of their own product, then it dies and becomes essentially just wood elves with drow skin, the basest lowest common denominator you could do - a typical fantasy wood elf, with a superficial cosmetic twist - often just thrown in for wood folk npc, and until very recently were just token NPCs in most things alliance and warcraft.

They were originally dark elves with a twist having a nature half - but have drifted to become a wood elf group with a drow skin. a far cry from a far superior earlier vision. When warcraft was young, and it's makers ambitious. Now they've all given up and left the project, which is why you don't see me bothering much either these days. And I'll soon be gone from here forever. The time to indulge in fantasies died in with the death of the last decade.

What you are going to get now, is not going to be like what it was 10 years ago. No where near as nice and much more twisted, cynical and sloppier too as it's all about fast gimmicks and eye poppers than real substance - not htat it was much better earlier, but it will get a whole lot worse.

[Ardenaso]

as a former Alliance fanboy I like Blood Elves more since they don't keel over to humans though Lor'themar needs some "fixing"; the imperfection and pragmatism and tragedy and desperation of the Blood Elves is what makes them perfect

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Blood Elves I just never liked and never will. Nightborne just do the whole Elven Shrewdness with grace and aristocracy. Blood Elves from the beginning reminded me of Malfoy-like evil for teh lols. And the entire theme of their race seems to be how traitorous their kind is. First with the betrayal of humans, then to the draenei, then to Mists of Pandaria's near attempt at Lorthemar going turncoat on the Horde back into the Alliance, then to a sect of them betraying the Horde to now fight for the Alliance.

the Grand Alliance never sent aid the Quel'thalas and only the Horde came to help them so obviously the helping hand is where you go

[ravenmoon]

as a former Alliance fanboy I like Blood Elves more since they don't keel over to humans though Lor'themar needs some "fixing"; the imperfection and pragmatism and tragedy and desperation of the Blood Elves is what makes them perfect

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the Grand Alliance never sent aid the Quel'thalas and only the Horde came to help them so obviously the helping hand is where you go

Forall thier moans about high elves, none of these pretenders have actually managed to do them right, if blizzard ever do the playable for woww, it does present an opportunity for something good enough to be fun

[Zuben]

Blood elves have this easily. Personally I liked them more during TBC when they had clear darker themes tied to their existence, distancing them from your typical fantasy high elves. After that was all sorted there was little more left dividing blood and high elves than loyalty to different patron factions. Their leader in particular is a curious case, ranging from an unknowable entity of little significance to a dashing gent grabbing the bull by the horns with style... to a pacifist yes-man who dabbles in romantic poetry. I haven't yet gotten into Shadowlands, but when I do I'm glad my blood elf main gets to take some distance from Horde's current leadership (Lor'themar in particular) and do stuff with vampires and Kael'thas.

The nightborne are a bit.. I don't know if redundant is the right term, but they fill a spot already occupied by the blood elves. There are no significant societal differences between the two. I love Suramar and the experience I had there in Legion, but now that it's no longer relevant content the nightborne feel.. forced? Something like that.

Night elves were interesting at first, but as I learned more of them I found qualities I don't appreciate. They are stuck up in a holier-than-thou way and the experience with overuse of magic by the Highborne effectively made them luddites. They're also way into nature, which is fine otherwise, but I'm much more into city life. What's left of their empire of the past is now represented by the blood elves and nightborne.

[ravenmoon]

Blood elves have this easily. Personally I liked them more during TBC when they had clear darker themes tied to their existence, distancing them from your typical fantasy high elves. After that was all sorted there was little more left dividing blood and high elves than loyalty to different patron factions. Their leader in particular is a curious case, ranging from an unknowable entity of little significance to a dashing gent grabbing the bull by the horns with style... to a pacifist yes-man who dabbles in romantic poetry. I haven't yet gotten into Shadowlands, but when I do I'm glad my blood elf main gets to take some distance from Horde's current leadership (Lor'themar in particular) and do stuff with vampires and Kael'thas.

Exactly.. this is what made the blood elves quite attractive to me to.. your bad boy elf twist on the high elf. But, whoever told them the blood elf existence made the high elf redundant? I still quite liked the idea of high elves too, and if you asked me having both brings out the other quite well. Your fantasy crowd will always like high elves, and there are those like me who would value a variation that wasn't uglified. And I think the anti-hero direction, especially when the blood elves team up with Illidan was the right idea.

After all, blizzard gives variations to races all the time. Every sub race is a variation of a main race, and while not all variations have physical differences, some can just be essentially different factions .. like the Wildhammers and Bronzebeards, or Lordareonas and Stromwinds people etc. Why some people feel that elves can't be varied to is beyond me. It's like they can't fathom that you can have more than one type of night elf, or that you don't have to have one type of Thalassian elf either.

The nightborne are a bit.. I don't know if redundant is the right term, but they fill a spot already occupied by the blood elves. There are no significant societal differences between the two. I love Suramar and the experience I had there in Legion, but now that it's no longer relevant content the Nightborne feel.. forced? Something like that.

The Nightborne are pure 100% an alliance themed race on the horde. Thalyssra and her nightfallen resistance could not feel more kaldorei if she tried. You could respond, that is the point, true, they were created as kaldorei setting group.. afterall the action happens in Suramar, the original home of most of the Night elves and where Malfurion, Tyrande and Illidan's story starts and is mostly focused on in the first 2 books of WotA. So it is night elf lore, all that area is the WoTA NElf zones brought to life.

While I don't think the Nightborne were originally meant to be playable in that form, blizzard kinda messed up when they made them playable and gave em to the horde. I suspect the Arcan'dor was meant to heal the Nightfallen resistance back into night elves, and basically save them, while the Elisande loyalists and demon collaborators get slaughtered. But the popularity to play the Nightborne was high, especially from the horde elf quarter.. So it came. What they should have done was not use Thalyssra, but instead use a recovered Elisande, and the loyalist type Nightborne who are a lot more arrogant and a lot less alliance feeling in character.

Thalyssra and the night fallen after defeating the legion, lose the city and get kicked out, joining up with the kaldorei and their Highborne, having being healed back into night elves, giving teh alliance a reason to want to fight the Nightborne. and allowing both factions to have a part of the Nightborne story even if the horde gets the city in the beginning.. it could even be something that goes back and forth between the two factions .

Night elves were interesting at first, but as I learned more of them I found qualities I don't appreciate. They are stuck up in a holier-than-thou way and the experience with overuse of magic by the Highborne effectively made them luddites. They're also way into nature, which is fine otherwise, but I'm much more into city life. What's left of their empire of the past is now represented by the blood elves and nightborne.

Night elves were clipped. Everything you see with demon hunters, Nightborne, Highborne, are all part of the night elves to be added to the druid and sentinel stuff.

There was so much more for them. The Moon Priestesses, a huge thing with their religion and their amazing temples, the glue that binds the night elves together, adn touches all their groups. the arcane, their origin and essence, whether you use it or not, all night elves are connected to it, born of/from it -it's why the skin is purple and the eyes glow silver and , and their race is at the pinnacle of it, not every night elf, but those who still use the arcane like the Highborne, Moonguard and Nightborne types are.. Then the demon hunters, which really have a clear night elven signature to them too, via Illidan and most of the NPC DHs we meet, they are meant to offer a different side to the night elves in terms of temperament, where the arcane and nature contrast in obvious ways, night elves who use both have a lot of similarities in their character - they are benevolent, peace loving , curious intelligent types.. in contrast the demon hunters are gritty hard edge types, full of scars, rough living which is very hard on an elf, but these are made o forged in an excruciating crucible of fire to become the honed weapons they are wielding the power of the demon against them to save their kind. Their nobility is still there, they're not evil, but they can't afford the luxuries they view in the character of their kin.

Add naga, satyr, and all that entails.. then you get the full picture of the night elf race.

Howeve ronly the druid and sentinel parts are made visible in the most famous night elf group, the playable run, this is due to neglect. Blizzard did not update the night elves after classic or give them particular progression attention. HTey got updates as every other race did, but don't forget when you see them in the story in game it's as token NPC. Most of their activity is through the books, ont hte game...so if like most fans you ignore the book content, you don't get most of hte night elves.. but htis s a dev isuse. The devs focused a lot on various horde races, and when it came ot the alliance it was largely humans.. Even zones htat primarily had night elf themes, like Hyjal, Suramar, , Vash'jir azsuna, even Val'saharah.. i.e. night elf themed/lore zones that came after the classic range often even little to nothing of the darnassian group. Take Hyjal - only Malfurion from the Dranssian group is involved, it's full of Cenarion circle Tauren and female night elves. Val'sharah, has the chase scene with Tyrande, nothing to do with the playable faction. Fortunately, WoD every night elf you saw was part of the playable group.

[Rhlor]

as a former Alliance fanboy I like Blood Elves more since they don't keel over to humans though Lor'themar needs some "fixing"; the imperfection and pragmatism and tragedy and desperation of the Blood Elves is what makes them perfect

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the Grand Alliance never sent aid the Quel'thalas and only the Horde came to help them so obviously the helping hand is where you go

lorthemar is a good character

[Thundering]

Some felt the void elves would balance the Alliance / Horde popularity in the last expansion -- but in PvP, Alliance was still severely outmatched. What is your solution then?

The problem for wow retail is they killed the Alliance on purpose for years they gave them inferior racials, worse questing experience and generally made the story so you had to play the horde to know what happens. The where shown as loser of everything for years and to make it worse for years they have been underperforminging in basically every metric and blizzard acts surprised that people either quit or changed over the the Horde.

Just look on first raid clears alliance haven't been in the race since wotlk..........

[Rootsbum]

As long as the male night-elves look like they do: Blood Elf.
(I would mutch rather be Nightborne, due to the more balanced physics)

NightElf feels a little to niche to me, like I barely can create the char I want too. THey all look the same to me; Parrots.

BloodElf on the other hand I feel like I can create a DnD-char with my headcannon: Wood elf, elf, dark elf, arcane elf, warrior, hunter etc

[Tanaria]

The only two Night Elf characters I have are a Druid and Death Knight (the latter being my nelf at level 60.)

I find the Night Elves under Tyrande and Malfurion to be extremely hypocritical.
It's why I don't bother with my Druid and my Death Knight...well, she's here because I like the idea of playing a night elf that goes against everything the Darnassians stand for. Plus, she's unholy, so raising the deceased into ghouls and skeletons is an extra bonus.

[Ardenaso]

lorthemar is a good character

he didn't do anything to the imprisoned Sunreavers after Garrosh was removed and he didn't demand accountability to the Alliance after Vereesa attempted murder on Rommath in Suramar

[Ihazpaws]

Night Elfs because Blood Efl females are sticks with stupid looking running and attack animations and males have serious problems with their stances when wielding something... Look at that back twisting.

[sillag]

blood elves are more popular for one main reason: they were introduced as a fascist nation with overt fascist themes.

tbc silvermoon is the ruins of a state recovering from a devastating war that embraces a "sin'dorei first, do anything it takes to ensure the survival of our nation" philosophy. if this sounds familiar congratulations on doing your high school history homework.

the blood elves evoke aryan fantasy in their design, even down to embracing the word "blood" in their new identity. the blood knights are very overtly the sin'dorei ss. there are literal thought police brainwashing those who speak out against the current regime.

blood elves are simultaneously drowning in their own national propaganda that they are the greatest race of all, but also that their enemies are all around them trying to sabotage and destroy them. this is peak fascism. it's demonstrated most clearly in the quests where the night elves are spying on the blood elves. what blood elf fans like to pretend is happening is the alliance is sabotaging the arcane sanctums. what reading the quest text actually makes clear is happening is that the arcane sanctums are failing because the blood elves can't maintain them, and the night elves are there observing. but the blood elves use this information to spread a fascist lie that the night elves caused all their problems.

now blizzard didn't actually intend blood elves to come off as nazis - at least not for all of tbc, because the blood elves go through a story arc of redemption and finding a new identity away from fascism. only problem with this is that blizzard underestimated how much horde players love fascist themes, and they refused to let go of the fascist blood elves.

if that sounds familiar to you it should because its literally the exact same problem that happened with garrosh, and then again with sylvanas. a sizable amount of horde players love fascist themes in their faction. they can't get enough of it. blood elves, sylvanas loyalists, garrosh fanboys who dress their characters up as garrosh, its all the same thing.

Infracted.

so thats why blood elves are the most popular elf race in fiction and why its an explicitly bad thing that they are.

[Tanaria]

How about you take these silly little left-wing Twitter buzzwords out of these forums.

I've reported this post as this is just another guise of "Anything that I hate, but somebody else loves...well they're a fascist/nazi."

If it makes you upset that Blood Elves remain popular, then I'm happy. Go ahead, call me a "nazi." I'll just call you one back. I couldn't care less what little people on the internet say about me. You can't physically hurt me anyway.