A minor rant: the Elf spectrum

[The Little Raven]

In any case, this leaves out the 800 lbs. gorillas, World of Warcraft (elves but no half-elves)

No playable half-elves in the MMO itself. But there is an NPC one.

and Final Fantasy (no elves).

Well, the first game has you going to Elfland and saving the Elf Prince and fighting the Dark Elf.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Let halflings be an elven subrace for all its worth.

They aren't?

 

[Aeolius]

They aren't?

I have always envisioned D&D elves as Pini elves.

On a side note, I'd prefer that they keep sea elves, as hey make up one of the core undersea races, along with merfolk and locathah.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Well, the size wasn't the question. And all of these games -- and remember that EQ1 reached half a million subscribers back in the good old days -- are extremely influential on other CRPGs.

Half a million compared to 8-9 million subscribers for WoW, 10-12 million NEW copies of Final Fantasy 7 sold, or even an estimated 5 million active D&D players? Again, 500k isn't above the range the more successful Suikoden and Wild ARMs games shot for, much less really high profile offline games.

NPC half-elves, so I'd give the half-elves a half-point for WoW.

As an option, perhaps, but as "core?" Certainly not above orcs, which are HUGELY high profile in Warcraft.

I believe that Lineage II -- huge in Asia -- has half-elves. They certainly have a ton of busty elf-like races, in any case.

I'm not familiar with that game, so that might be a point in half-elves favor.

If you discount EQ1, I'm not sure there are any major MMORPGs below the WoW level.

Actually, both Lineages, Final Fantasy XI and Runescape were all quite a bit higher as of the last hard numbers I can find (from about a year ago). I'm pretty sure LotR Online is higher, now, too, but can't find numbers for it on a quick search.

Well, the first game has you going to Elfland and saving the Elf Prince and fighting the Dark Elf.

The first game didn't sell 10+ million copies, either.

 

[Anthtriel]

Teiflings are cool, but no Aasimar?

I love characters with celestial heritage more than any other player I know, and will happily play them if I can (and they don't suck as casters, like they did in 3E, unless you rebalanced them), but I still don't think they are halfway near as useful for the game as Tieflings.
There are reasons why we got two Fiendish Codexes, but not a single Celestial Codex.
Fiends are much more important for campaigns than celestials are, and are also, for the lack of a better term, plain "cooler".

 

[GSHamster]

I think having eldarin and elves is good. Wood elves and high elves go all the way back to Tolkien, and they are two solid archetypes. Plus, elves as sidhe are awesome antagonists and tools for DMs.

But they could cut half-elves and drow. I happen to like both those races, but I agree that it's a bit too much elvishness for me, at least in the core book. I would like to see something a bit more different. Orcs, or perhaps shifters, would be great.

Plus, if you go with the old editions:

human, half-elf, elf => human, elf, eldarin

That sort of preserves the spectrum. Regular elves are sort of halfway between humans and eldarin.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

On a side note, I'd prefer that they keep sea elves, as hey make up one of the core undersea races, along with merfolk and locathah.

I could see sea elves being dropped, but Malenti kept around.

 

[Aeolius]

I could see sea elves being dropped, but Malenti kept around.

In theory, you cannot have malenti without having some sea elves nearby. Also, in 1e the sahuagin entry mentioned having an ancestry that included both sea elves and drow... hrmmm...

 

[Aldarc]

I can't help but wonder if the core race that is being held back until later previews is the drow, especially if they are dumping the elves, half-elves, and eladrin on us.

 

[Zamkaizer]

Half-Elves are probably getting excluded from my campaign setting, lessin' they prove themselves worthy of inclusion through sheer awsomeness. Even then, I might - nay, will probably - completely overhaul their fluff and make them a unique race with no relation to the elfier amongst us.

As for eladrin, I don't want them to look like elves, or even uberelves. They are, after all, fey, or something like them, so give them emerald skin or hair of leaves or horns like an elk's - something to distinguish them from their more terrestrial cousins. A similar treatment is deserved by the aasimar (someone mentioned them earlier; they were amongst the first candidates for inclusion as a Monster Manual player race) and to a lesser extent drow.