Hi. I don’t know if something like this has been posted before, but I like numbers, do I did a thing. I tallied up how many Void Elf characters were listed as “Ren’dorei” or “Quel’dorei”.
Scientific Method!
Observation
People can semi-emulate high elves using void elves with, for lack of a better word, “earthy” skin tones.
Hypothesis
There will be more Quel’dorei than Ren’dorei.
Experiment
I tallied up how many of each kind of Void Elf there were in Stormwind (on MG and WrA) and Duskwood (on WrA).
Full Methods
- They had to have a RP Profile.
a. This is because Ren’dorei can have earthy skin tones, so I wanted to be fair and only count them if they had an opportunity to declare as Ren’dorei or Quel’dorei. - I ignored certain profiles.
a. Low level characters that had "Void Elf ", no last name, and earthy skin tones. If they had void skin tones, they were counted as a Ren’dorei.
b. Any characters that had “ooc character” explicity described
c. Any earthy-skinned characters whose profiles weren’t loading (mostly on MG, lag bad) - I assumed any unspecified (e.g. “Thalassian”, “Elven”, or “Half-Elf”) were Ren’dorei if they had void skin tones and Quel’dorei if they had earthy skin tones.
- Sin’dorei were counted as Quel’dorei.
- I have three Ren’dorei, but I only counted one of them.
- I wrote down names to make sure I wasn’t double counting. I deleted the lists once I was done.
Results
Quel'dorei: 43
- WrA: 18
- MG: 25
Ren'dorei: 68
- WrA: 26
- MG 41
San'layn: 2
- WrA: 1
- MG: 1
Succubus: 1
- WrA: 1
- MG: 0
Half-Kaldorei: 1
- WrA: 0
- MG: 1
Conclusions
37.4% of Void Elves are Quel’dorei, 59.1% are Ren’dorei, and 3.5% are Other. Therefore, there are 1.58 Ren’dorei for each Quel’dorei. This is about 8 Ren’dorei for every 5 Quel’dorei.
Though I didn’t do the math on this, a cursory glance at the numbers suggests that the ratio was about equal between Wyrmrest Accord and Moon Guard.
So, there are still more Ren’dorei than Quel’dorei. Which did surprise me! I would have guessed there would be an influx of Quel’dorei once the new skin tones were released, but color me shocked.
A few thoughts on why that might be...
- A lot of characters were already Ren’dorei. While some people certainly wrote some kind of “de-voiding” story for their Ren’dorei (and I intend to for Falothorin!) once the new options were released, many probably didn’t.
- You can only simulate a Quel’dorei. All the hair colors still don’t match the “high elven” fantasy of earthy hair colors to match the natural skin tones.
- The original purpose of this tally was to gauge interest in earthy hair colors for void elves, assuming that almost all “Quel’dorei” characters would want that option. I do wonder how many Void Elf characters would use the earthy hair colors, earthy skin tones and still call themselves Ren’dorei, due to the political affiliation.
Thoughts on Improving a Future Tally
- I’d probably establish some kind of level floor. Like… Must be greater than level 15 or 20.
- I might be a little more exclusive. Like, when unsure, I tried to sort them into a category. So, maybe just exclude the characters that don’t explicitly declare their affiliation. I like the “If the race was generic, go with the skin-type”, but that did lead to a few problems (like, one “elf” character had an earthy skin tone but a void aura, and I counted them as “Quel’dorei”).
- I might be more rigorous on excluding profiles which don’t seem like actual RP profiles. For example, must have one of the following: last name, custom icon, custom race, custom class, etc.
- Count Sin’dorei separately. There were a few of them! Maybe about four or five?
Anyways, that’s all! Thanks for reading! 
