BC's effect on the census
by Eliah Hecht 
Feb 28th 2007 at 7:27PM
The Burning Crusade has been upon us for two months, and already, as I'm sure you've all observed, it has had a dramatic effect on the race/class balance of the game. First off, due to the massive influx of Blood Elves -- they are now the most popular Horde race! -- the Alliance:Horde ratio is more even than ever at 1.3:1 (though of course individual servers do vary substantially). Draenei have not been quite as winning as our love-to-hate-'em elfly friends, placing solidly in the middle of the pack for Alliance races (between Gnomes and Dwarves on the one side and Humans and Night Elves on the other).How about classes? Well, the stereotype is true: more Blood Elves are Paladins than are any other class (35%). This has made Paladins 6th most popular class for the Horde, which is kind of surprising for a class that just became available recently. Who thought so many Hordies had been secretly longing to bubble-hearth? This having been said, Draenei Shaman are even more popular, relatively speaking, than Blood Elf Paladins -- 49% of Draenei are Shaman. That's a lot of space totems. This also means Draenei represent almost half (48%) of all the Shaman in the game; 39% of Paladins are Blood Elves. Due to the relative unpopularity of Draenei, though, Shaman is still the least popular Alliance class, as it has been for the game's history (not entirely by choice for most of it, of course).
All of this data is from the ever-lovely WarcraftRealms.com census data, and ignores characters below level ten. Head over there if you want more detailed stats of any kind. How is your realm doing?
Filed under: Horde, Alliance, Analysis / Opinion, The Burning Crusade, Classes
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
C.A. Feb 28th 2007 7:41PM
Ah, the joys of being dominated 2.5 to 1 on Garona. Playing horde makes world pvp a challenge, but I still enjoy it.
I wonder what server is the worst imbalance?
Wena Feb 28th 2007 8:17PM
I sometimes wonder about that census. It's saying that all servers have relatively the same population, including the overpopulated ones.
Am waiting for the day that Blizz will have a site to publish out these data. Since they're opening up more and more of their databases with number crunching, it would be interesting to see what is the actual numbers really are.
RogueJedi86 Feb 28th 2007 8:47PM
Lethon has the same problem of Horde. 14% of Horde are Blood Elves, 13% are Undead. I'd love to know if the Bloodies are mostly alts, or actual new players picking "the pretty race".
Bradley Nash Feb 28th 2007 9:13PM
I rolled a blood elf b/c it was new, and they make good casters with their racial mana tap and arcane torrent
Blargg Feb 28th 2007 10:06PM
Ravenholdt - 49ish% Blood Elves Hordeside, and like 27ish% overall (AT LEAST!!!) There are tons of Blood Elves.
Blargg Feb 28th 2007 9:13PM
30%!!!
Sarah Mar 1st 2007 1:16AM
I went to one of the new servers, Ravencrest, and Draenei are really, really popular there. In fact the whole place is run amok with Draenei Shammies. Its kind of funny because there are so few other Alliance races, with the exception of maybe Night elves, that all you see is blue skin, haha. Of course I didn't help matters much rolling a draenei paladin myself ;).
wowinsider.qsh Mar 1st 2007 1:51AM
"Draenei represent almost half (48%) of all the Shaman in the game"
Make perfect sense to me, as they're the only race that can play the class for one whole faction... Dunno why BE Pally's aren't 50% also, probably Hordies trying to boycott the class they've hated for so long.
Dommich Mar 1st 2007 5:53AM
shock and awe ladies and gentleman. shock and awe. i just found out that on the server (Das Konsortium EU-RPG-PvP) i play my Horde alts on 50 % of the overall population are belfs. Horde Alliance ration is somewhere around 4:1.
Daz Dingo. I shudder.
Zuuler Mar 1st 2007 7:15AM
I was somewhat happey to see my PVP server had a ratio or 1.6 alliance to 1 horde, but all that means is a bunch of alliance jumped ship and rolled blood elves. I don't mind that one race is more popular than another, but when you get on a zepplin and there are 8 blood elves on it, and you're the only non-paladin, it can get a bit rediculous.
I can't blame them for going paladin though, I really don't like their racial mount, and decided a long time ago that any BE I made would be either a warlock or a paladin just so I wouldn't have to have a hawkstrider.
multikast Mar 1st 2007 8:30AM
Don't forget that many people, like myself, made Belf pally alts just to learn the class a little bit, and i'd be willing to bet that most of them are not people's mains.
Zuuler Mar 1st 2007 9:10AM
@11
Thats true, but the census only counts to lvl 10, which if you want to learn the class you need to lvl past 10 I guess.
The ones that really disturb me are all the BE's I see named Legolas (most with the funny characters you need to hold down alt and press numbers to get). They've all been hunters too (I've seen at least 3).
Last night I ran through desolace to get my expert cooking and I saw 2 drainei shaman, one left me alone, the other, lvl ?? decided to kill me, and took about 10 hits to do it, and I'm a lvl 24 warlock...
My favorite ganking last night was from the ?? warrior who followed me but wouldn't attack until I got to mannoroc and pulled 3 demons. So he only attacked when he knew there was no way he could lose, what a wuss.
Prauche Mar 1st 2007 9:52AM
No no...the census only counts toons ABOVE level 10. Therefore, it's not counting all the bank alts, mules, etc.
Bradley Nash Mar 2nd 2007 2:13AM
@10 - oh yeah, thats another reason I went with warlock with my belf - Ostrich FTL!
Zuuler Mar 1st 2007 10:32AM
@13
Sorry, thats what I meant to type, MT
Druiddude Mar 1st 2007 10:48AM
Coilfang, PVP. just had a major break through. For the first 5 weekes of the server more than half of the total server population was belf's. Just the other day that percent dropped to 49%. woo-hoo.
Belf=Murloc. Kill one here come 10 more you never even saw.
Strongmark on Arthas Mar 1st 2007 10:58AM
My server (Arthas) is the opposite of the world norm, we are 1 ally per 1.3 horde. I have seen a huge influx of new BE, hell, I have been playing since november, almost cracking 47 last night, and there are a tonne of them starting to gank me... such is life.
rgoff31 Mar 1st 2007 11:40AM
Seems like the server ratio hasn't changed that much even though I do know there is a ton of BE Paladins.
Ten Ton Hammer has different stats than Warcraft Realms on the Norgannon.
warcraftrealms.com
Total: 23,567
Total Alliance: 15,097 - 64%
Total Horde: 8,470 - 36%
A to H Ratio: 1.8 : 1
wow.tentonhammer.com
Total: 30983
Alliance: 22826 -73.7%
Horde: 8157 - 26.3%
Ratio (A to H): 2.8:1
Guernia Mar 1st 2007 11:28AM
For those of you who dislike the hawkstriders, consider that merely by questing you can hit exalted with UC by the mid 50's. So, technically, you're really only stuck with a hawkstrider (or with no mount) until level 55, after which you can pick up a much cooler undead horse.
Right now my Org rep isn't far behind my UC rep either, so if wolves are more your thing a few games of AV in your mid 50's should easily sort that out.
Zuuler Mar 1st 2007 1:36PM
@18
Is that including low lvl (less than lvl 10) characters? If so that might account for the huge difference. I know I have several alts across different realms that I never lvld past 3.