Then and Now: Pretty addicts & space squids
by Krystalle Voecks 
May 15th 2007 at 12:00PM
![[This one won't win any beauty contests with that face, that's for sure...]](http://www.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2007/05/elfinup.jpg)
Flash back to six months ago. There were people swearing up and down that the Blood Elves would ruin the Horde with their silly antics and their overly-pretty looks. Many on the Horde side had misgivings that we'd be dealing with a slew of switchers who were just rolling Horde to play pretty characters, but otherwise would bring little to the table. I remember seeing forum postings saying that Blood Elves would be outcast and unwelcome, and even a couple of "boycotts." Many other people were complaining about the "space shaman" that the Alliance were getting. Well, okay, most of the complaints were about the male models -- I don't think anyone on the Alliance side disliked the female Draenei models. Then of course, there were those who were just as unhappy with the changes to the Blood Elf models made towards the tail end of the open beta and swore they wouldn't roll one due to the larger chest.
Flash forward to now. My guild has one Blood Elf paladin who is approaching endgame: an old guild mate who re-rolled. We also have a host of Blood Elf alts in various stages of being run up through the ranks. None of us are even batting an eyelash at any of them. There again, none of these are new players to the guild, so we aren't dealing with any potential switchers. Another of my guild mates is doing the faction grind to get her undead a chocobo... err... thunder chicken... whatever those things are. The forums are no longer ablaze with "Blood Elves suck!" or "Just say no to space squid!"
I know for me, despite misgivings, the Blood Elves have largely been a blip on my personal radar. I have a Blood Elf hunter (stereotypical, had to do it) who is all of level 19, and has been collecting dust for some time now. I saw the content and experienced most of the new quests, which was pretty much what I set out to do. None of it has made me want to level a Blood Elf to endgame to take the place of my Troll/Tauren/Undead characters. And that's even including the Blood Elves having some extremely awesome racials that I'm sure will eventually make me level one.
Have the Draenei or Blood Elves totally changed your gaming landscape? Have you noticed a lot of faction switching, or did you switch to the other side yourself? Did people really boycott, or were prejudices eventually left behind? For those of you who rerolled or switched, have you been treated any differently?
Just curious, since there was so much fire and vitriol about the new races before Burning Crusade went live.
[many thanks to Sean]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Astros May 15th 2007 12:11PM
Well if your horde guild is seroius about raiding then you need some paladins and you are kind of forced to accept blood elves.
Sylvina May 15th 2007 12:14PM
I dropped my main Undead Rogue, and decided it was time to play a Blood Elf Paladin. I've fully switched, and so have many other people in my guild. Surprisingly, we have a LOT of Paladins who play now. One former mage, one former shaman, a few former hunters, and a former rogue. None of the healing types re-rolled a paladin to play a 'healing class' and none of the people who are rolling Paladins have specced into 'retribution', it's just a pile of Holy & Prot paladins.
On a side-note however, on a roleplaying realm, I've seen a lot more 'want to cyb0rz? 1g plz' naked dancing blood elves, and the entire eversong woods area is Barrens Chat 2.0, it's just a horrible experience to have general chat on in those areas now.
spetsnaz May 15th 2007 12:18PM
I'm a tauren shaman and I love grouping with a paladin. I think that the two are such a good duo and they can complement each other a lot.
Duromiir May 15th 2007 12:25PM
I'm shocked... Shocked! To find insane ranting on the official forums!
/end sarcasm
Honestly, the place is populated by the titular characters from CHUD. The only reason to go there is for official posts, and even those are best found via Bluetracker.
More to the topic:
Both races are fun... I love having Shaman in my Alliance (I rolled one and got him to a massive 16 :P) and the Blood Elves have some great quests and a lot of story-type flavor, if that's your thing.
Twalname May 15th 2007 12:24PM
I never had a problem with Draenei, but whenever I see a Blood elf, I want to hurt them. They have probably deterred me from playing horde altogether. Teaming up with a Blood Elf would possibly be unbearable for me. Yes, I am a racist.
Odyne May 15th 2007 12:29PM
I started playing about 7 months ago and rolled a Tauren Druid (I orginally wanted Night Elf but alas, my boyfriend insisted on Tauren). Looking at her now, I have no idea why I picked her hair/fur/face combo, it's pretty ugly.
I started leveling up a Blood Elf Priest alt just for fun and also because they're prettier than Taurens. She is now level 70 and also my main, attuned for SSC and working on The Eye attunement. My Druid is attuned as well, but these days I use her for farming.
Maybe it's because I'm Horde, but I've seen a lot more blood elves compared to draenei, or at least higher level blood elves. I think a lot of people were excited to have a prettier character, I know a couple people in my guild that switched to blood elves just for the looks (like undead rogue to BE rogue for example)
robodex May 15th 2007 1:00PM
On pre-bc servers, Belfs/Draenei aren't that common; 90% of them are alts.
However, on some of the BC launch servers, Blood Elves are a plague:
http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?serverid=779&factionid=-1&minlevel=70&maxlevel=70&servertypeid=2
http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php?serverid=782&factionid=-1&minlevel=70&maxlevel=70&servertypeid=2
When almost 50% of the server are blood elves (and these servers having an almost 15:1 horde:alliance ratio,) you can see that Blood Elves are clearly the most popular horde race for rerollers.
Bart May 15th 2007 1:00PM
Yeah Its very rarely now where my PUG isn't 80% BE. Only once, I was the only BE in the group. Ive been leveling my toon for 2 months.
Dongyrn May 15th 2007 1:00PM
I've been a casual player for a year now. Bit of an altoholic, so i didn't level any of my chars very high - my main was a Forsaken 41 frost mage, and I had another Troll 41 hunter.
Then I rolled my BE Pally, and just fell in love. Already got her up to 49, and that's still casual playing. I enjoyed Ghostlands immensely, and like many others wish Bliz would prop up the other starting areas some...
But yeah. I get to play my Pally without that unclean feeling that I got with an Alliance alt. :-D
Janessriel May 15th 2007 12:48PM
When the exp first hit, I rolled Draenai Shaman. I was on vacation so I had lots of time to level. I remember getting yelled at that I had no life when I wanted a Deadmines group the next day after the expansion. I ended up dropping the toon because I hit the late 20s/early 30s wall that I always seem to hit and ended up deleting the toon.
I also rolled several Blood Elves and finally stuck with a rogue, who's level 30 now. The Arcane Torrent racial is a huge benefit in PVP, since casters are probably the most annoying to me in BGs. Locks are fun to fight, between Kick and the torrent, they never have a chance to get off one Fear, much less fear spam.
I can't tell if it's my guild or the class or what, but I've been on my rogue much more than my main, a 50 Nelf Hunter (yeah, I know...). So for the moment, I would consider myself a switcher. I know my Alli friends have to be wondering where I've been. :)
Janessriel May 15th 2007 1:00PM
When the exp first hit, I rolled Draenai Shaman. I was on vacation so I had lots of time to level. I remember getting yelled at that I had no life when I wanted a Deadmines group the next day after the expansion. I ended up dropping the toon because I hit the late 20s/early 30s wall that I always seem to hit and ended up deleting the toon.
I also rolled several Blood Elves and finally stuck with a rogue, who's level 30 now. The Arcane Torrent racial is a huge benefit in PVP, since casters are probably the most annoying to me in BGs. Locks are fun to fight, between Kick and the torrent, they never have a chance to get off one Fear, much less fear spam.
I can't tell if it's my guild or the class or what, but I've been on my rogue much more than my main, a 50 Nelf Hunter (yeah, I know...). So for the moment, I would consider myself a switcher. I know my Alli friends have to be wondering where I've been. :)
Birthmark May 15th 2007 1:01PM
I hate bloodelves. Even my own bloodelf mage. When I run around with the horde in warsong gulch we just look wrong. Half the team is bloodelfs. I liked it better when horde were ugly and proud of it. It's turned the cool to be bad horde faction into the sissy faction. There's no seperation between horde and alliance anymore.
Birthmark May 15th 2007 1:54PM
I hate bloodelves. Even my own bloodelf mage. When I run around with the horde in warsong gulch we just look wrong. Half the team is bloodelfs. I liked it better when horde were ugly and proud of it. It's turned the cool to be bad horde faction into the sissy faction. There's no seperation between horde and alliance anymore.
Flit May 15th 2007 1:01PM
I know this is trollish in nature, however, i have to say it:
After playing a pally now, I don't know how blizzard said that shaman were on the same level. I don't think anyone went to the other side, because of the base of friends and toons already established. I guess people might be rerolling on other servers, but that's not my problem.
Ryan May 15th 2007 1:43PM
@4 That's exactly how I feel about hunters, guess that's more classist though.
Tim Engelbart May 15th 2007 1:37PM
Draenei and blood elves are pretty extinct in Outland. There's the occasional draenei shaman and blood elf paladin, but usually it's just a bunch of humans, night elves and orcs. I'm not complaining, I enjoy being one of the very few guys around with a level 70 Draenei mage as his main character :)
Jashin May 15th 2007 1:40PM
There are a quite a fire dranei on my server. But guild wise.. i am the only shaman above level 50. And the only raiding shammy. So far its been a good experience raiding. But overall, the big deal about BE and Dra's messing up their relative factions seems way over blown.
There are some hardcore class elitists who will complain no matter what. But they seem few and far between. Most just want you to be able to play the class, since you picked it. Especially if they are ex-horde shammies/alliance pallys with a lot of experience.
Hayase - ER
Shiro May 15th 2007 1:51PM
Yep, I'm a re-roller.
I had it planned before BC though. I found that after they opened cross-server BGs that I loved to PvP in them. Unfortunately the Battlegroup my server is in is WAY overpopulated on the alliance side. 1-2 hour waits for AV at 60 weren't uncommon.
Thus when my guild stopped raiding in prep for BC, I took the time to roll an undead mage.
I rolled her to duo with my wife's undead priest (both classes we haven't leveled to 70 yet).
Then I got to really liking the horde and the BGs and everything, so I rolled a Orc Shaman to solo with... Plus I wanted to do the quests in the BE starting areas.
We resisted creating our Blood Elves until the starting areas had emptied out a bit. Then we started up a pair of twin Warlocks. They look exactly identical and we dress them identically as well. It's a hoot. :0
I've also got a BE rogue that I'm leveling as well, just as sort of a "whenever I feel like it" thing.
I'm sure we'll eventually level all of them to 70, probably once we get our undeadies there first. :)
Shiro May 15th 2007 1:53PM
Yep, I'm a re-roller.
I had it planned before BC though. I found that after they opened cross-server BGs that I loved to PvP in them. Unfortunately the Battlegroup my server is in is WAY overpopulated on the alliance side. 1-2 hour waits for AV at 60 weren't uncommon.
Thus when my guild stopped raiding in prep for BC, I took the time to roll an undead mage.
I rolled her to duo with my wife's undead priest (both classes we haven't leveled to 70 yet).
Then I got to really liking the horde and the BGs and everything, so I rolled a Orc Shaman to solo with... Plus I wanted to do the quests in the BE starting areas.
We resisted creating our Blood Elves until the starting areas had emptied out a bit. Then we started up a pair of twin Warlocks. They look exactly identical and we dress them identically as well. It's a hoot. :0
I've also got a BE rogue that I'm leveling as well, just as sort of a "whenever I feel like it" thing.
I'm sure we'll eventually level all of them to 70, probably once we get our undeadies there first. :)
jaydlawii May 15th 2007 3:19PM
As a Draenai Warrior, it is really cool to be able to heal yourself without buying tons of potions, or making bandages, or having to stop and eat. If there is 1 horde race i cannot stand it's the Blood elves. There nothing more then the teen models of Azeroth. At least with the blue skin of the night elves, it make them look a little more exotic. The Blood elves are the typical size 0 model chicks that i cannot stand to look at. ant the blood elf males are the uber attitude a holes that you want to punch out. take that you punk! with the Draenai, finally the Alliance have a another race that has a toughness about them. they hijacked a ship from the blood elves and crashed it. there huge, finally a male with some presence in the alliance. Other then the dwarves, the Draenai are the only other race that i like. and the Draenai females look pretty good imo. they actually have some shape.