Why do elves suck?

[Dragonbait]

They are portrayed as perfect because Tolkien wanted them to be that way, and so many others have followed the pattern and frankly, we want to bang 'em. Why would we want to make something most people are attracted to anything but seemingly perfect?

 

[Dimwhit]

They are portrayed as perfect because Tolkien wanted them to be that way, and so many others have followed the pattern and frankly, we want to bang 'em. Why would we want to make something most people are attracted to anything but seemingly perfect?

I don't know, man, they look more like 9-year-old girls to me. And we all remember what that gets us around here...

 

[Dark Jezter]

Well, to start with the remedial stuff, World of Warcraft's playable races are divided into two factions: The Horde and the Alliance. The Horde originally included orcs, trolls, tauren (basically Native American minotaurs), and a "race" of intelligent undead called the Forsaken. The Alliance originally included humans, night elves (tall, purple-skinned "wild elf" types), dwarves, and gnomes. Since Alliance races tend to be prettier, there tend to be a lot more Alliance characters on any given server. Also, for whatever reason, the Alliance seems to attract younger players, on average.

The recent release of the first WoW expansion, The Burning Crusade, added a new race to each faction. The Horde got the blood elves, who are essentially a race of magic-addicted "high elf" types, and are considerably prettier-looking than the other Horde races. The Alliance got the draenei, who have way more convoluted backstory than I'm gonna subject you to, but look much more interesting than the other Alliance races. This has caused some annoyance for Horde players who don't wanna see elves running around their cities, and who would love to play as draenei, but don't want to cross the faction line.

Also, as Flexor mentioned, the new races have access to character classes which were previously the exclusive property of the opposite faction, and that bugs some people a whole lot.

It's been theorized that giving the Horde a "pretty" race was a move calculated to balance faction populations a little bit, and thus help the Horde out in player-vs.-player competition. Personally, I think the decision was at least partly in response to WoW's huge popularity in Asia: The blood elves are kind of anime-looking, in a way. Certainly, they're a lot closer to the character design you see in the other MMORPG that dominates Korea, Lineage 2.

Incidentally, humans, night elves, and blood elves are currently the most popular races in WoW, while orcs and trolls are utterly neglected. Damn, but people depress the hell out of me.

Great post. I would also like to note that this isn't exclusive to World of Warcraft either; in any fantasy MMORPG, the "pretty" races (usually humans and elves) are inevitably the most popular, which also means that they attract the youngest and most immature players. I have a friend who played Alliance when WoW first came out, and then eventually created a Horde character. He noticed almost immediately that there were a lot fewer immature Horde players than Alliance players.

Although this is no longer true now that The Burning Crusade has been released. Now there's a bunch of jackass Blood Elf players running around in Horde cities.

 

[jasin]

Ah, but they don't target anyone in particular though. All you have to do to avoid insult is not self-identify as an elf fanboy, which I doubt most people would do.

Equally, you just have to not self-identify as someone who can't handle elves properly to avoid being insulted by Kae'Yoss's "They don't [suck]. Those who can't handle them properly do."

Can you handle elves properly?

 

[Dragonbait]

I don't know, man, they look more like 9-year-old girls to me. And we all remember what that gets us around here...

A TV spot on To Catch a Predator?

 

[Desdichado]

Equally, you just have to not self-identify as someone who can't handle elves properly to avoid being insulted by Kae'Yoss's "They don't [suck]. Those who can't handle them properly do."

Can you handle elves properly?

D'oh!

 

[Doug McCrae]

Personally, I think the decision was at least partly in response to WoW's huge popularity in Asia: The blood elves are kind of anime-looking, in a way. Certainly, they're a lot closer to the character design you see in the other MMORPG that dominates Korea, Lineage 2.

I read somewhere that the Horde races are actually a lot more popular in Asia. Apparently they prefer monstrous looking characters.

 

[GreatLemur]

I read somewhere that the Horde races are actually a lot more popular in Asia. Apparently they prefer monstrous looking characters.

That comes as a huge shock, from everything I thought I understood about Asian nerds. Interesting.

Damn, and the WoW census tool doesn't seem to include Asian servers, just US and European. Unfortunate.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

In another version of this same conversation, the question came up: how do you fix elves?

I mean, I think the answer varies depending on what you think the most glaring problem with them is, but let's have some ideas for how to make the elves something other than annoying pretty people with a few warmed over bland Tolkien themes grafted on from time to time.

From a flavor point of view, Eberron did a great job. There's only one elven race (the drow don't count, and they're also different).

Elves are generally either Valenar or Aerenal. Valenar elves revere their warlike ancestors and try to emulate and do better than their deeds. They deliberately provoke other races to war just to prove their uber-ness, and have performed despicable acts like slaughtering human refugees. The typical NPC Valenar is a bit overlevelled, but they're not the typical 15th-level drow found in FR so it's not too bad.

The Aerenal literally worship their ancestors; their "god" is called the Undying Court and consists of their "undying" ancestors. Elves can and will literally pay visits to their great-great-great-great grandmothers, for instance. Together the Undying Court is as powerful as a deity and has managed to fend off dragon attacks, but it never leaves Aerenal and doesn't adventure; individually they're around CR 9 (lower tier) or CR I forget (higher tier, below CR 20). There's nothing to indicate they have more levels than anyone else and are definitely not "cute tree-huggers". Maybe they do tend to disdain other races, but then they live on an island by themselves and will be much more humble when outnumbered by members of other races (well, they better be!).

There's no elven pantheon; an elf is totally free to worship anyone among the Sovereign Nine, for instance, so evil elven clerics can exist.

Elves from the human lands are called "Khorvaire elves" and don't seem to act snooty.

The drow don't worship their own pantheon, instead worshipping "the Dark Six" or Khyber if evil or something else if not evil... their culture isn't monolithic. A good-aligned drow isn't at all unusual but they're not going to be angsty heroes and they stick to Xen'drik (they're not a PC race in the Eberron Campaign Setting).

 

[Sejs]

In another version of this same conversation, the question came up: how do you fix elves?

Pretty simple - doesn't even need a mechanical fix.


Take 'em back to their more fey roots.


More wild and chaotic. Fickle, passionate, and perpetually living in the now. The old school kind of elves that would try to chase down a deer unarmed, get drunk off their ass under the stars and screw on a whim. Ones that don't care if Everything Was Better Before, because frankly, they can hardly remember it anyway.