To appease the Chinese audience. Which is sad and irksome. I remember not agreeing with it at the time but everyone tried to justify it somehow. And lo and behold the decision was for monetary reasons.
Edit:
I can’t include links for some reason on this forum but:
“ * The reason for Blood Elves as a Horde race is because when expanding to an Asian market, in their culture most of them do not like the idea of playing a particular monstrous or un-noble race like the Horde consists of in vanilla, so in TBC they added the Blood Elves so they could have a “beautiful” race to expand to that demographic on the Horde side.”
3 Likes
How does adding Blood Elves to the Horde appeal to China? Especially since the Blood Elves work closely with the Forsaken, which trigger China’s cultural taboo against depicting bones, spirits and undead.
17 Likes
I’ve literally never heard this theory in my life. You’re going to need to provide some kind of source beyond myunclewhoworksatnintendosaid
Their entire WCIII story was about being alienated from the alliance and seeking new, dangerous allies elsewhere. Them joining the Horde was never as big a leap as people like to pretend it was.
28 Likes
I can’t include links for some reason on this forum but:
“ * The reason for Blood Elves as a Horde race is because when expanding to an Asian market, in their culture most of them do not like the idea of playing a particular monstrous or un-noble race like the Horde consists of in vanilla, so in TBC they added the Blood Elves so they could have a “beautiful” race to expand to that demographic on the Horde side.”
I assume you were at the Dance Of The Dead meet and greet last night with the former Dev? It was a really insightful interview, and the questions from fans were good. I hope people took notes. His book is well worth picking up if you want to learn more behind the scenes insight.
It was also noted that the Horde was in need of a beautiful race and it would benefit them.
3 Likes
One of the original Developers for WoW was a guest at Dance of the Dead last night and answered the question in a Q&A
4 Likes
We have always know it was a population thing. This part about it being regarding the asian market is pretty new.
Points at Death knights, worgens, void elves.
If Blizzard had wanted them to rejoin the Alliance, they would have and bonus, the Alliance has been “getting the band” back together for the majority of its run with Kul Tiras and void elves being one of the last few pieces of said puzzle.
1 Like
And for a lame reason too.
The “Asian market” at the time playable blood elves were introduced was South Korea, not China. I believe Chinese players could only access the game through outside servers at the time.
I’d also take that story with a grain of salt. It probably wasn’t the only reason for the decision.
That said, though, who even cares if that was the reason for it? I think putting elves on the Horde side was a brilliant move that challenged expectations every bit as much as saying that orcs could be the good guys.
21 Likes
Was it a dev that actually would be dealing with the higher up discussions about markets and whatnot, or is this another thing like the the artist a while back who “vaguely remembered” something about asian girlfriends and people jumped on that as the only reason for blood elves while ignoring all the other devs at the time who listed a ton of reasons (including giving the horde that type of look)
6 Likes
You can. Just add a ` at the start and end of the link.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/former-wow-dev-confirms-blood-elves-to-horde/1692312
Ya he was one of the main devs in vanilla.
1 Like
That’s subjective. Whatever your thoughts, the reasoning is dumb. It was bad at the time and bad now
Reminds me of those old rumors, which were mostly spawned from the scrapped, ‘Silvermoon Remnants,’ reputation faction that would’ve been Alliance Exclusive, back in Vanilla.
The rumors went that the Blood Elves were originally supposed to join the Alliance. Very early work at the time gave the Night Elves such a significant presence in the Ghostlands because they were there helping the Blood Elves reclaim it from the Scourge. After this, ‘Asian Poll,’ it was changed to Blood Elves joining the Horde, and they just decided instead of the Night Elves sending their forces across the ocean to honor Kael’thas’ aid to Tyrande during WC3:TFT, they were just invading to investigate, “reckless arcane magic use.”
2 Likes
https://www.lby3.com/2005/10/29/blizzcon-chris-sigaty-explores-the-lore-of-warcraft/
Blood Elves were chosen as the Horde expansion race in the Burning Crusade because designers were thrilled with how well Samwise had redesigned the classic wood elves with the night elves. And they knew that, “one day, high elves are going to have to get a facelift, too.
“I don’t think anyone has abused high elves to this degree,” Metzen said.
Players surprised that the Blood Elves would have any interest in joining the Horde don’t know everything that’s going to lead the groups to joining up.
9 Likes
Last night John Staat was live at a fan-hosted event, answering questions for fans. He was Blizzard’s first dungeon designer and developer and on the team from Alpha into Cata. He has wonderful professional credits, and was super friendly and had wonderful stories about development and the creative process of early game design in the company.
He is also the author of the book WoW Diaries, which goes over his career and extensive background and major creative contributions to the company.
A number of people attending were young game design students and other game designers and they loved his friendly professional demeanor and insight into what it was like working in those early years.
6 Likes
So it is the same guy as in 2020.
3 Likes
While it can be interesting to hear the reasoning and fun to speculate the ‘what ifs’… It’s been over 15 years. People are still bent out of shape about this?
Void Elves are essentially High Elves with the option to be spooky. Not sure why that’s not enough?
2 Likes
Elves are serious business
3 Likes