Yeah, I’m a bit late, but I wasn’t in town when I read Grace’s post which in turn linked Syp’s post about the core races in World of Warcraft, and it’s something I have an opinion about 😛
First of all, I can’t really rate them the same way, most of the time I don’t agree on the Male versus Female versions, so I kinda need to make two lists.
Female characters:
- Really like: Orcs, Tauren, Dwarves
- Like: Humans, Night Elf (but only Warriors), Gnomes (mostly Rogues)
- OK: Blood Elf (Paladin and Warlock, not so much Warrior, Mage or Priest), Pandaren
- Don’t like: Undead (except Warriors), Troll,
- Meh: Draenei, Worgen, Goblins
Male characters:
- Really like: Orcs, Trolls, Tauren
- Like: Dwarves, Undead (only a few face options)
- Don’t like: Gnomes, Pandaren, Goblin, Worgen, Blood Elf
- Hate: Night Elf, Humans, Draenei
So first of all, the scale of female chars goes from say 1-5 of 6, the scale for Male chars goes 1, 2, 4, 6 with 3 and 5 missing.
I don’t think I can articulate my thoughts about the races as well as the 2 linked posts above do, but I don’t care much about lore in WoW in the sense of “what am I playing?” – I like to read up on it and the NPCs are part of it, but I am the player, the center of the world, I am not to be judged what my forefathers did 🙂
So just some quick points:
- Draenei: Space squids, ugly, space ship story doesn’t check out
- Undead: Too mopey and earnest, but overall ok.
- Orcs: Totally overused in the greater WoW story, I hate Garrosh
- Trolls: a bit over the top with the Jamaican thing and cannibalism, otherwise total <3
- Blood Elves: snobs
- Night Elves: “One day I’m gonna make a NE hunter and call her ‘Stereotype'”
- Dwarves: Boring (but solid) run-of-the-mill fantasy dwarves (plus gadgets, like in Warhammer maybe, less than Gnomes at least)
- Goblins: should’ve stayed neutral
- Pandaren: shouldn’t have been playable, were awesome as MoP NPCs
- Worgen: nice starter zone, meh models (high quality, don’t enjoy)
- Tauren: used to be too big in Vanilla (PvP etc)
- Humans: boring, but also solid, I hate Varian
- Gnomes: weird limbs, too much armor clipping, overall fun
So on the one hand that means I straight out refuse to play certain races as male characters and to the best of my knowledge when I did try.. I deleted them all before Level 10, something I don’t do often in MMOs… on the other hand I’ve made some questionable choices in the past that I wanted to remedy but didn’t want to spend money on.
Also my view on certain combos have changed a lot over time. I didn’t like female Dwarves at the start (like vanilla to WotLK?), wasn’t a great fan of female Orcs and Tauren, I liked Blood Elf males when TBC launched. I liked male Goblins when they were introduced. I didn’t like Undead, period.
So much for the general view on WoW races, now some personal history of poor choices:
First is my female Blood Elf Warlock. I made her when TBC hit and Blood Elves were the new shiny thing (didn’t play Alliance at the time…) and she was awesome. OK, the Frozen Netherweave Tailoring gear was maybe a little overpowered, but hey, why not top damage meters on a fresh alt? I imagine I was just really good at Warlocking! For now I’ve made my peace and as a (practicing and at heart) Pen&Paper roleplayer I hate to retcon characters… Next is my female Blood Elf Paladin. Only Blood Elves could be Paladins, so it had to be Blood Elf. When race changes were announced I really wanted to make her a cow (and it was a less-played alt, so the RP thing wasn’t as bad..) but then I was too tightfisted to really do it, then I played her a ton more and then I collected T2 armor and it looks really, really good so.. no cow. Then my male Blood Elf Priest. Started as a duo with a female Blood Elf Priest and in the end.. he doesn’t bother me so much that I *need* to race-change. I still might, at some point, but it’s only “I made a mistake.. but I can live with it.” My male Pandaren Monk. Oh boy. I liked the male Pandaren at the start, they had this laid back Baloo/Yogi bear feeling to them but as I leveled to 80, 85, then 90 – maybe it was also because Monk was the first class that was decidedly unfun from Level 20 up to when I stopped.. I just don’t feel that character anymore… maybe if it was a female Pandaren which I at least find adorable with the right hairstyle.. meh. I also have a lowbie (<90) male Goblin Warrior on another server which I don’t hate, but as my first real (Blood Elf) Warlock, he was only levelled to experience the new starter zone and race, then played catch up in friends’ guild.. Never properly played, no real connection. On the other hand I still have some characters I like a lot better, and to a certain degree I think the race/class combo does matter: 81 male Troll Hunter, 100 male Undead Death Knight, 74 female Pandaren Priest (all wrong server again).
For all that moaning about races and classes, for all I can tell (been inactive in WoW for a while), I’m 100% or at least 90% happy with all the choices of characters I ever dubbed my main, main alt, or pet project (that female Dwarf Shammy I leveled up just for the Algalon achievement, that 3rd max-level Rogue at Level 90…).
Wow, that’s been a long post, but I quickly want to touch on the Allied Races. I only read about them and am a bit dismayed you have to do so much to unlock them. Especially as someone who had played for 10 years and stopped just before they were announced. We’ll see if I will play BfA and if I will try to have a look at some of them. I also don’t know if you can do a paid race change to one of them, I might investigate that. Not sure I want to level anything up again from 1, I did that often enough…
Some of them look quite interesting though, first and foremost the Dark Iron Dwarves and Zandalari Trolls. Also the Kul Tiran Humans as far as I have seen. Void Elves look ok (but only a Blood Elf reskin? Also the Lightforged Draenei?) Highmountain Tauren look cool as well. Not a fan of the Nightborne or Mag’hart Orcs.
Update: Another take on the matter, even if I vehemently disagree on most points 😉