I cannot stress how fully I agree with Kylenne's sentiment. There are a lot of things that don't make sense to me about the sudden ability for certain races to be new classes from a lore perspective, and the Night Elf Mage was one of the biggest ones.

I will also be making myself a goblin mage, though ^_^ A goblin everything, if I can manage it. I just want to be able to access my bank on the go! haha.

Stuff changes in 10000 years, mate. I doubt any Blood/High Elf is gonna care.

I have to agree with this, and with me it might just be an oxhorn variety of elf hate. To be honest I'm not very excited at all about every race but tauren being able to make mages. The more mages out there, the harder it is for me to find a raid spot. Maybe that's just me being a selfish ninny. And yet I don't pay to play this game so I can spent half my time trying to beat out the other mages that already make up as much as 12-13% of some server populations.

Maybe I'm overreacting to the implications of this, after all priests are available to every race but orcs now. We'll just have to wait and see I suppose. I just don't think it's a stretch to say that more mage races= more mages, and that playing an incredibly popular/ common class isn't always the most fun. Joining a VoA and seeing 4 other mages is enough to make nearly anyone drop the group, and I'm not sure increasing the frequency of such occurrences is exactly a recipe for fun days as a mage.

@Yumathewhite:

Are you really suggesting that the only thing keeping people from rolling a mage was that they couldn't be a Night Elf or Dwarf? More race choices does not equal more of any particular class. Alliance has three paladin races compared to one on the Horde, but both factions have a similar number of paladins. Horde have more hunter races, but the same percentage of hunters. I would guess that most people choose the class they want to play and then consider the races available, rather than the other way around.

I completely agree with you there. The whole "You can RP an 11,000 year old Night Elf and say you remember it from back then" thing just doesn't fly with me.

I completely agree with you there. The whole "You can RP an 11,000 year old Night Elf and say you remember it from back then" thing just doesn't fly with me.

I completely agree with you there. The whole "You can RP an 11,000 year old Night Elf and say you remember it from back then" thing just doesn't fly with me.

@kabshiel. You make valid points, but I'm not convinced that adding 5 races (including 2 new) that can make mages will have absolutely no impact on the amount of mages. While i think the majority will yes roll the class they want, i also think that it's incorrect to assume people don't pick a character depending on race- there are lots of things that go into the character selection process, especially for the new player.

I do hope this doesn't have massive implications for mage populations. All I'm voicing is my worry that it might.

While I agree that generally people choose class, then race, there are situations that keep people from playing a certain class because of its races. For example, I hate alliance starting zones with a burning passion. The only one I can stand is Dranei. That means that if I want to play on the same faction as my guild, I can only play a Dranei compatible class (so no rogues, warlocks, or druids for me). On the Horde side, the Tauren starting zone makes me want to puke, so no druids I guess.

On the other hand, Cataclysm is revamping most of the starting zones (I think, correct me if I'm wrong), so that issue will probably be eliminated. All in all, I'm not sure if opening up the mage to more races will increase Mage numbers, but I know it won't decrease them.

"exiled your people for having useful knowledge"

Oh yes, they were totally exiled because they had "useful knowledge." Had nothing whatsoever to do with summoning hordes of demons into the world.

Who said they were tolerated in their society? There are Night Elf DKs, right? What happens when you walk into Stormwind? Not to mention Warlocks of any race in either faction. Still trying to figure that one out.

If they allow night elf mages, I think they should also allow blood elf druids. They both make equally much (or little) sense in lore.